Originally Posted by
nik0tine
Originally Posted by
Vincent, Thunder God
But if there were no guns, the unintentional deaths would go down. A bullet can cut down someone by accident; a sword is virtually impossible to misuse and cut down an innocent. Besides, kids can get to them and set them off by accident...
How often do innocent people get killed by stray bullets? Kids can kill themselves with kitchen knives.
Unintentional shootings are more prevelant in America than you think. See more further below.
And most kids of 3 and up would know the dangers of a sharp object. Guns are less obvious. A curious child could more easily die from a gun.
Originally Posted by
nik0tine
Originally Posted by
Vincent, Thunder God
And it's much easier and more efficient to use a gun. If someone wanted to murder someone from a distance it's easier... a melee weapon can't do that. The effeciency will create more deaths...
I call BS. People murdered an asston before guns were ever invented, and people murder an asston now. If I want to kill you, give me one reason why I wouldn't kill you with a knife if I didnt have access to a gun? In fact, it happens all the time.
Also, when people are killed by guns it's at close range 99 percent of the time. How often do people randomly get sniped? Almost never.
Think about it. Would you want to fight gang wars with swords and clubs, or guns with further ranges? The more efficient, the easier to kill, and this fact could lead to more deaths.
Originally Posted by
nik0tine
Originally Posted by
Vincent, Thunder God
And sometimes just having a gun in the house can make the decision between a homocide or not. Mentally unstable or angry family members would more easily become victims of temptation.
You're creating a bunch of hypothetical situations that are very rare. You can't ban something over obscure, unpredictable events that happen once in a blue moon.
This is only a limited number of ways gun ownership can go sour. And despite your arguments, these can happen more often than you may think. See more about unintentional deaths below.
Originally Posted by
nik0tine
Originally Posted by
Vincent, Thunder God
Furthermore, guns create the need for more guns. Every threat of a terrorist drives fear into you Americans, and you feel the need for guns. If someone takes out a gun even in self-defense, it will result in someone's death.
I think this is a load of garbage personally, but what about criminals who get guns illegally? How am I supposed to defend myself against them?
And don't even start with the terrorist nonsense. Nobody is trying to defend themselves against terrorists.
Most importantly, however, when my government decides to step out of line, I'd like them to know that I have the ability to defend myself against them. In my opinion thats the really important issue here. I'm not worried about a random criminal. I want politicians to know that I have the ability to fight back if need be.
Not that I need to at the moment. However, guns give power to the people and subtract power from politicians. How can that be a bad thing?
I was merely giving some examples of how gun ownership might spin out of control, and how it could at least partially have orchestrated those almost 12000 deaths. There are many other scenarios in which gun ownership can cause deaths. It doesn't matter how many I metion, though, the fact of the matter is that your country has more gun deaths than any other, and there's a reason for that. You may believe that there is no corellation between the laxer American gun laws and those murders have nothing to do with each other, that the murders would have occured anyway.
The fact of the matter is, something caused each of those gun deaths, and I do not think that all of those would have occured if your gun laws were stricter. In fact, I think the majority of them were at least partially related to the gun laws, and some of them may have been completely avoided with better gun laws.
Our arguments will always boil down to the same thing: you think that gun ownership laws have little or nothing to do with the causes of these deaths, and I think they are directly related.
However, before you say that my arguments are hypothetical only, think of your arguments. You basically said you want guns legalized in your country for these two reasons: 1) in the case of a rebellion against your government, you want to be prepared; and 2) in case criminals have obtained guns and plan to attack you.
How is an organized American rebellion against your government and an invading force of gun-bearing criminals not a hypothetical situation? Hell, that's not just hypothetical, that falls into the vein of highly unlikely. Even if you wanted a rebellion, I doubt anyone would join you, and I don't think you're adamant enough to wage a one-man rebellion. I also don't see a point in rebelling agasint the American government, as faulted as it is. And the chance that a criminal would be dumb enough to shoot you with a hard-to-obtain gun (assuming there were gun laws in place) is highly unlikely. We have strict gun laws in Canada, and it is rare to have someone with an illegally obatined weapon to attack innocent bystanders.
And furthermore, despite reason 2), you say that your fears of terrorism have nothing to do with your need for guns. If the fear of enemies who obtained guns illegally and who will possibly attack you isn't a form of terrorism (in which case you "need a gun for protection"), I don't know what is.
You're trying to sidestep the main point here. It doesn't matter how many possible situations I list in which a gun could cause a murder, the fact is your country had almost twelve thousand
homocides with guns in 1998, and in 2003 there was a total of
30 000 gun-related deaths including homocides, unintentional shootings. suicides etc. (
This is the source. )
730 of those 30 000 were unintentional, wihch means that guns themselves caused those deaths more or less. A sword couldn't cut down an unintended victim unless the wielder was blind, but with stray bullets, it's all too easy. Suddenly all those "hypothetical" possibilites aren't as far-flung as you would beleive.
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