More dangerous than an urban area? Nah. I'm not saying it's more dangerous. I'm saying it's a different kind of dangerous. It's dangerous because getting the law out to where I grew up was a 45-60 minute process, and that's WITH the county mapping out the roads and creating 911 compliant addresses. 20 years ago, when I was 16 and 17 and running around...it was over 90 minutes to get law enforcement to our area. 90 minutes. Domestic violence happens in the country. Robberies happen in the country. Shootings and arson happens in the country. The length of time for LEO response means that the abuser is more comfortable (in my experience) whaling the shit out of a partner, because a) no one can hear the screams and b) by the time anyone does, it's blown over and can be attributed to 'falling down'. I'm not saying urban areas are safer, at all, because I don't think they are. I'm just saying it's different. Had I been in the country the night ExH2 pulled the shotgun on me, I may not have made it out that night. No one would've heard the blast. No one could've responded in a timely manner IF they heard the blast.
I'm a-okay with gun ownership. RESPONSIBLE gun ownership. Ownership where not only do you own weapons, but you're working with them and learning them and using them on a regular basis. Ownership where you can't sell your whatever to Joe Bob Dinkley down the highway because you got in a tight spot and need some extra jingle, until you've both done paperwork and Mr. Dinkley is cleared for ownership of the weapon. Ownership where once you've purchased a weapon you have to prove ownership of a locking gun safe and are responsible for using it. It's an unpopular opinion, but it's mine.
My friend purposed guns should have insurance, much like a car. You pay a premium every month and if something happens, assuming its not your fault, the insurance pays out. Its not a perfect idea but it makes some sense. If you accidentally shoot someone, then the insurance wouldn't pay out or it could depending on how things work out. I think this idea has some legs.
Isn't it arguable that a car is more a necessity than a gun? A right to bear a car isn't in the constitution but in modern day America in nearly every corner of the country it is a necessity unless someone is willing to be bound to public transit. The Bill of Rights isn't a perfect document. Amendments have been made. Looking at it like it can't be changed seems a lot like a fundamentalist Christian who takes the Bible word for word for better and worse. Genuinely and without worry, I don't think that argument means much, and I don't apologize for thinking a 250 year old document, while profound and protects us, doesn't have perfect applications with modern concerns in every scenario and clause.
TVI, what do you mean by "out of circulation?" You do realize that guns aren't perishable items that eventually go bad, or die of old age, don't you? Hell, my dad has a Winchester rifle from the late 1800's that still shoots beautifully to this day; last time I saw it, it didn't have an expiration date stamped on it. Also, most gun owners aren't going to say: "I'm bored with this thing" and toss it in the trash. Guns are valuable, either monetarily or sentimentally; I know plenty of people with large gun collections, but don't even shoot them, just because they're family heirlooms. The only way your plan would work is by confiscating guns, or by offering some kind of (hopefully positive) incentive for owners to turn them over voluntarily. Which of those two options were you proposing, TVI? Also, TVI, the last time I checked, Philly isn't a rural area, so I'd recommend you not go trying to tell us rural residents how things are in our respective corners of the country. I don't go running my mouth about Philly, do I?
Nett makes a good point about using a firearm in a real-world situation, as most people haven't had experience with this. But this also includes cops. There are quite a few people in law enforcement who have no business handling a firearm. I own 9 guns, most are for hunting and varmint control, two are primarily for personal protection. I have a carry permit but very seldom do I ever carry. The only reason I have it is so I can legally keep a handgun in my truck without having it in a case. I've thought about what would happen if I got into a situation where I'd have to defend myself, and I'm pretty sure about 3 times out of 4 it would end with me being shot, whether I stopped the attacker or not. That's just the reality of it, and I hope it never happens. I live in a rural area where a 911 call will get me a deputy in 15-30 minutes, depending on where he's at in the county. I'll still call 911 if something's going on, but I'm not entirely stoked about the idea of hiding unarmed until they show up. I've always thought gun owners should have a state-issued gun ownership permit on the back of their drivers license or ID card. It would require a one time gun safety course and background check. That way if someone is on a watch list, or is charged with a felony, etc, the license can be suspended/revoked, and if a law officer runs their license it will show up. It wouldn't be a cure all by any means, but it might catch some of these people who seem to slip through the cracks.
I'm not proposing anything. I, as stated several times earlier, don't care whether there are guns or not. I just care about honesty in the dialogue. Buy them back, surrender them, add another 300 million, I don't give a shit. Just don't bemoan gun violence but not be willing to do anything about it. As to Philly, my response was to the contention that somehow rural areas are more dangerous than cities. This is flat out untrue. Crimes are committed by people and wait for it, there are more people in the cities than in rural areas of the same size. By the way, I grew up in a rural area. I never heard a neighbor having to use a weapon to defend their rural property. I'm sure it has happened, but the argument that without guns rural life would be too dangerous is facetious. I lived there. It felt safer than the city I live in now, hence the comparison. So finally, for the rural members - a question: How many times have you needed a weapon to defend you or your property? Were they armed intruders? Were they threatening you or your family? How often does this really come up? The reality is people are confusing rural culture with necessity. The culture like elsewhere is pro gun. Which is fine. That's how it was where I grew up. But there was little necessity due to crime for firearms. People just liked them.
My next door neighbor, who lives a quarter of a mile down the road, chased a burglar out of his house with his pistol last year. 5 years ago there was a home invasion 12 miles from where I live. A married couple was tied up and the husband was pistol whipped. His guns were in the safe. No one claimed that rural areas are more dangerous than cities, you just said they aren't very dangerous and people disagreed. Bad things happen around here once every couple of years, but there is a common knowledge that going onto someone's property unannounced in the middle of the night will drastically increase your chances of getting hit with buckshot. I think that alone prevents a lot of burglaries from happening.
News flash! Crime rates down for almost 30th year in a row!!!! I never claimed rural areas weren't 'dangerous' so let's go to the tape: The argument I am refuting, is that somehow 'without guns rural areas would be too dangerous to live in because the police can't get there in time' - I never claimed there wasn't crime in rural areas, or that there wasn't some level of danger. However, this tired argument keeps finding its way into the dialogue - and it's less true in a rural area than a city. If your argument is 'self protection' (which it invariably is) - it's just as true in the city as a rural area. In both cases, it's bullshit. A gun in the home is 4 times more likely to be used on an occupant than an intruder. See Nett's post and Dcc's about people reacting to intruders in this very thread. And I responded to this post the same way: the argument that rural areas are more dangerous than cities and thus require firearms to make them livable is just false. I lived in a rural area for 20 years without a firearm. Was there crime? Of course. There is everywhere. But somehow rural occupants pull out the 'rural' creds like the rest of us 'just don't get the danger' like they're living in the Wild West. Again, not true. Crime happens everywhere. It just happens more in the cities, because again, more people. It's a culture thing, not a necessary thing. For example, your post. A couple with guns was victimized. That's terrible, no one should endure that. However, those guns didn't really do them much good, did they? And that's usually how that works out. And you've cited two incidents in 5 years. Again, crime happens everywhere, but the amount of crimes that have been committed within 12 miles of my house in the past 5 years? The murders alone are in the hundreds.
I don't know. Is it defense if a wanderer shows up casing the place for your scrap, tools, machinery, and animals and you show him a shotgun and a "get lost"? Because if you're counting those situations...that happened a lot when I was a kid. We lived on a backroad that deadended and my dad had a lot of easily stolen tools in the shop, and we had scrap metal from various whatever's dad had going on. Either could be and were a couple of times stolen, but often we were able to provide deterrent. And the hogs and coyotes back home are no joke. You simply DO NOT work fence in the back pasture without a weapon. A large one. That will blow the face off a wild hog. Because they've figured out humans are squishy and fairly defenseless, and those motherfuckers are mean. Coyotes are less about attacking humans and more about stock but you definitely have to shoot them because for whatever reason, they don't mind when you say "HEEL!" Real loud at them. I'd argue that weapons are more needed for defense from asshole wildlife like that (or, sadly, when an animal needs to be put down) than really anything else.
You are ignoring the argument that law enforcement is often over an hour or more away if the need for protection is required. Also there is the fact that most people in the country act on the assumption that everyone else is armed too....that keeps everyone a bit more honest. And as Shimmered said, there is also the wildlife. In Mississippi I always had a gun with me while I was on my back 40....wild dogs, bobcats, and snakes were the most likely. In Idaho it more along the lines of wolves, bears, and mountain lions.
Weekly basis at the extreme, sometimes I go a week using one gun every day though. And no they aren't armed intruders, they're dangers to my animals, son and propertly like coyote, fox, hog, armadillo, rattle snakes and if you toss in the nuissance animals like oppossum, raccoon (those fuckers go into the attics in tx winter and chew threw all the wiring) and skunk I get a lot of target practice. And that's just me not leaving the front porch. Whenever I'm out on the property, especially at night, I ALWAYS have a handgun on me, long gun if I can too. I've learned the hard way. The moment you leave it at home thinking you won't need it is the time a hog trees you. I'm not a big fan of fox and coyote using my pets as food either. All a warning shot does is tells them to come back later. Dangerous animals aren't deterred by yelling "you leave me alone or I'm gonna call 911!!" For me not have guns out here would be unsafe. If I couldn't have guns, I would not be able to live in the country. Simple as that. And if something did happen where there was a violent person involved, those cops are 15 minutes away easy. You are your 911 until they get there.
That's pretty much how it works here in Australia. To own a gun you must prove a valid reason for ownership and pass a safety training course (which if im honest is a bit of a joke but still better than nothing). These valid reasons are limited too: Vermin Control (on a rural/primary producer property large enough to safely accommodate the calibre weapon you are licencing), Sport/Target Shooting, and in very restricted cases Large Scale Animal Culling (the only way you can get a semi-automatic rifle in this country... and theres like under 10 people in the whole country with this licence). Self defense is not a valid reason to own a firearm here (and using any of the 3 firearms I own in a self defense situation would likely get me more jail time than the perpetrator). I can sell any firearm i currently own to anyone else, but we both must fill in quite a lot of paperwork and the new owner will have to wait between 1-3 months for the background check and forms to be processed. While they wait the firearm is stored at a registered firearms dealer who will get approval from the police to give the firearm to the new owner once the forms etc clear. Continued ownership is partially reliant on proving you still have a continued need/use for it... i say partially because if you only hold a firearm for Sporting purposes your club will have a minimum number of times you must shoot each year (and they are obligated to report if you don't meet the quota)... however if you have a licence for vermin control you don't need to continue to prove the need, you just need a landowner to write you a single letter when you licence the firearm saying they give you permission to shoot your gun on their land and you'll effectively never be asked about it again. Its pretty restrictive, and i don't necessarily agree with the entire system (id like to own a semi-auto rifle for example)... after all im a responsible firearms owner and just like to shoot guns safely and responsibly... however i also don't want any old fuckwit able to get his hands on a firearm so im willing to jump through a few extra hoops to get mine. The police still have guns here, because of course they fucking do! While the gun buyback here after the Port Arthur Massacre was incredibly effective it was never going to nab all the guns because the Police/Government didn't know where all the guns were, our gun laws were very similar to the US prior to this so there was plenty of private sales/grey market sales/loopholes that meant it was impossible to know where every gun was. So we still have a black market for guns, and if they really want to a criminal or terrorist can still get their hands on a firearm through the black market. That might be an old firearm from before the ban, a firearm stolen since the ban, or a new one illegally imported since the ban... but it doesn't really matter either way as that firearm and its ammunition is now a limited commodity high value item (think $20k+ for a semi-auto rifle that costs about $800 in the US) which severely limits the access your average petty criminal or terrorist nutjob has to such a firearm and the ammo to run it. Is it perfect? Fuck no. We still have shootings and gun violence but it is usually gang/crime related and home invasions or muggings involving a firearm are pretty rare (because you generally arent robbing some poor fucker of his TV and jewelry when you can afford to drop a few thousand dollars on a handgun)... we also haven't had a mass shooting incident since 1996 so its worked on at least that level even if you ignore all the other stats about the reduction in gun violence and suicides involving firearms. Would it work in the US? I really don't know, but having been on this board through several other shootings like this and seeing the same arguments each time, I doubt it will... despite our similarities it is a vastly different culture and you have a fucktonne more guns than we ever had in circulation so even if you could get a buyback or something similar over the line you have a massive mountain to climb. Down here after one crazy fuckwit killed 35 people we were willing to sacrifice some personal liberties around a lethal tool in order to restrict access to these lethal tools as much as we could... but then again one of our founding fathers didnt say "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety", we dont have a constitution that specifically gives us the right to bear arms (even if it is via an Amendment) and we don't have a deep seated and profound mistrust of the government ingrained in parts of our culture. TL,DR? Heres the opinion of another Aussie delivered in a humorous way (and i think we could all do with a little levity right now)
The thing that gets to me in these discussions whether civilians would be safer if they had only been armed when their life was threatened, is that it doesn't fucking matter. Did anyone ask that civilian whether he wanted to be armed? Those 100+ people at the nightclub, you think if security had been offering guns for protection at the entrance to the club, they all woulda been like "Shit yeah" and taken one? When as far as they knew this was a perfectly safe environment that had just as much chance of being shot up by a nutter as the millions of other nightclubs open at that moment? I don't have a problem with guns - my husband has guns, my father has guns. I have no desire to own a gun. I've thought about learning to shoot one, but it fills me with anxiety. I don't personally like them. I've managed to live 43 years of my life never feeling unsafe enough that I felt I had to force myself to overcome my distaste of them. I'd like to live another 43 years in the same vein. I think it is incredibly shitty that if I end up getting shot by some nutter in what I consider to be a perfectly safe shopping mall or whatever, that some assholes on the internet are going to say that I would still be alive if I had only been carrying a gun.
Actually if we're going to tug on that thread the most logical solution would be to ban men from possessing guns. Just sayin...
Is it my imagination or do we jump on anyone who tries to blame Islam and Muslim people for radical behavior of individual Muslims? The first statement is always that they do not represent the larger group. So, why do we jump on responsible gun owners and the NRA for the irresponsible behavior of a few gun owners and then talk about restricting freedom while we are at it. Why don't we all be honest with one, another. The real problem here is globalizationviolenceontvmentalhealthvideogameviolenceculturegapswealthgapsinstitutionalizedpovertyinstitutionalizedracism and that there isn't a fix for it and it will never get better? This is the new normal. Embrace it.
I don't hate the government nor do I love it. I happen to be from MS an not glossing over what is happening nationally but we are being fucked. I grew up as a catfish farmer and while I can say some odd shit went down while raising them I can promise that the fish were never raised in sewage or in anything that would be reported as unsanitary. But now John McCain and a few other senators want to send the inspection of foreign catfish from the USDA to the FDA which will allow Chinese and Vietnamese fish an unimpeded access to our markets. The FDA had there chance and inspected 4% of incoming shipments. The USDA inspected 76% and sent back almost half. For all the shit everyone talks about GMO's or Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, etc.. nobody seems to care about this. The imported product isn't even catfish according to what we have usually produced. There's Basa, Bai, an other variations on the species. Why does nobody bitch about this? Honestly the importation of SE Asian fish put my family out of business. We went from farming 1900 acres under water to draining all of our ponds to produce row crops such as corn, soybeans, rice, and jus this year cotton.
Personally speaking as a firearms owner, and an outsider, I don't see your gun control debates in the US as "jumping" on responsible gun owners... I see it as more about defining what a responsible gun owner should actually look like... Maybe that means a comprehensive background check? maybe a mental health assessment? Maybe longer waiting periods? Maybe restrictions on the types of weapons a responsible gun owner can own? Maybe mandatory training? And i think we can all agree it definitely means no criminal record... Or maybe all of the above? Whatever the criteria may be there should be something more concrete than what you guys have now, and probably at a national level so you do t have a bunch of different fucking rules from state to state... Anyone can say they are a responsible gun owner, the problem is crazy people generally don't know they are crazy... So maybe you need a few checks and balances to actually define what a responsible person actually looks like?
I own somewhere between 20-30 guns distributed between centerfire rifles, shotguns, rimfire rifles, and pistols. I live in a small town that has had a huge problem with car/truck burglaries in certain areas. About a year ago one of my friends (Afghan Vet) heard something outside his house in a small residential neighborhood.. He went outside and someone was going through his truck; he yelled stop and the perp turned and shot, yet missed.. My buddy shot the criminal in the throat. The thug's parents and family cried and complained yet nobody was charged and that neighborhood has experienced not a single burglary since. There were a few instances of drive-by's until all the neighbors started reporting all strange vehicles. I don't own an AR but I do have plenty of other semi-auto rifles, pistols, and shotguns. I have bought all of my firearms legally and will continue to do so. I actually had a .45 1911 returned to me last year that had been stolen 4 years ago which happened to be involved in a drug crime at Ole Miss. I have no problem with guns being registered when you buy them yet I think there's also no reason to restrict my option/right to buy whatever I choose.