Guns in America: we move onward into a new level of special thinking...

[wasabi]

So people should never leave their fenced-in enclosures?

[xodianbarr]

This made me lol.

Yeah, i can see the funny side but thats how i feel. I dont rate myself above or below any other living thing. I try to consider that im supposed to be more intelligent and self aware, and therefore have a responsibility to be considerate to other living things.

[Jay]

Yeah, i can see the funny side but thats how i feel. I dont rate myself above or below any other living thing. I try to consider that im supposed to be more intelligent and self aware, and therefore have a responsibility to be considerate to other living things.

Lol, that post contradicts it self

[Saracen]

Problem is that freedom is ultimately weighted against responsibility, and regretfully, even a small minority of irresponsible individuals can cause a disproportionate amount of harm and damage, amplified by the lethality of the weapon. I still don't think that there is a non-subjective answer to this, as it comes down to how you want to weight the things.

I am not against guns being used for sports, provided that everything stays on site and locked in a vault after use. I am 50/50 in regards to allowing guns at home (in a country where guns are generally outlawed): on one hand, it is reasonably safe to assume that an intruder in your house is not up to any good, and guns can provide an even things up if the intruder is physically stronger. On the other hand, it would give the intruders all the more reason to be similarly armed and more prepared to kill (though the flip side is that those unprepared to murder may give up the idea altogether). And I'd also need to trust the gun owner to store the weapon appropriately.

Where I'd have an issue is people walking the streets with a piece. Or carrying them on a plane. If freedom is the single most important thing to protect at any and all cost, then anyone should be allowed to carry guns and explosive in a commercial jet. I wouldn't be surprised if most flights would still arrive safely as the majority of people do not have a death wish. But to me, "majority" alone is not good enough in this case. Incidentally, allowing weapons on a plane *might* have stopped 9/11. But we will never know, and to me the pros do not outweigh the cons. I'll have to extend that to arming teachers.

Well, on a plane is a very specific situation, and as I understand it, a very small group are allowed to do that. Certainly, just legally owning a gun doesn't entitle you to carry it on a plane. For that matter, just owning one doesn't entitle you to carry it out in public, let alone on a plane. Getting a "concealed carry" permit in the states isn't a trivial exercise, though it varies from place to place, and even if you have such a permit, using or even showing it in a way that carries an implied threat can get you in a truckliad of trouble.

As far as I'm aware, the only people carrying firearms on planes as a regular thing are armed air marshalls, skycops if you like. Even most law enforcement don't carry in the cabin. They can, however, get weapons checkedfor the flight, and collect at the other end, and law enforcement credentials can get you through security checkpoints with a weapon.

As for home security and self-defence, you're right that it's a balance, but of coyrse, banning is not a balance is it? Any reasonable, responsible individual, law-abiding individual is banned too, not just the irresponsible ones.

Rarely are these things either 100% right, or 100% wrong. If householders have guns, it is possible that some burglars will go armed that otherwise might not, but we know that some burglars currently go armed anyway. if the burglar is armed with a gun and the householder is not, you are either entirely at their mercy, or you're going to have to try to catch them by surpruse with whatever else you hsve, be it a baseball bat, knife, pepper spray, auto wrench, golf club, whatever. And even that largrlyassumes you are able-bodied, reasonanably young andfit, and preferably, male. Or it's very one-sided, as it is unless you manage to surprise someone in an ambush. It also pretty much assumes it's one on one, and that there aren't two or three intruders.

We also have quite a body of evidence suggesting thst burglary rates drop heavily in areas where householders are known to be arned. Burglars, in the vast majority, US or UK, really want to be in and out without confrontation, and thst when confronted, usually will flee. But not always, especially where drugs are involved.

So, if an intruder flees because of a gun, it's a win for the householder. If they don't burgle you in the first place because of the chance of a gun, it's a win for the householder. If you're unlucky enough to hsve an armed burglar that won't, for whatever reason, flee, then at least if the householder is armed too, it somewhat levels your chances.

But if you're not armedand it comes to a confrontation, what chance does an elderly person stand? Or someone with an infirmity that would slow them up in a hand to hand fight? Or a lightly build man against a solidly build burglar? Or a woman .... well, most women, as I've down a few that could certainly hold their own.

By an large, most burgkars are opportunists that want to be in and out with minimum fuss and no confrontation. Faced with armed householders, and a respectable chance of getting shot as an intruder, most will find another way of getting money. Which again us a win for the householder.

[Saracen]

Thats exactly my sentiment. If i really objected i would be on the streets of the UK condemning it. But im not, im just merely voicing a point of view. Having a lethal weapon (we could be potentially abused) for the purposes of sport is not what i would call 'justifiable'. Even so, what would be the problem of only be able to use loaned weapons at a shooting centre? Is it really necessary to have to 'own' one. At least that would be safer.

In some ways, if it were just sport, that might work .... though "loaned" weapons wouldn't. But having your own, but keeping it locked up at a shooting centre might. But, if you normally shoot at centre A, what about when you want to shoot at centre B? Or there's a competition?

As for loaned weapons, for serioys spirying use, it's not an option. You're going to find people prefer this weapin or that, with or without adaptations like custom grips, and they will set up sighrs on weapons like rifles and don't want someone else messing with them. Even with handguns, some prefer pistols and others revolvers, some prefer a light calibre, especially if you are lightly muscled or have weaker wrists, while others prefer a heavier calibre. Hell, even if it's a 9mm, some will prefer make A and others make B, or even within a given make, model A or model B. Remember, weight varies, kick varies, balance in the hand faries and not everybody has the same size hands.

And, it's not just about sport. It's also, for instance, about personal protection, self-defence, etc.

[xodianbarr]

Lol, that post contradicts it self

How so?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Sorry but I have to say your responses on this subject are very uninformed.

First off an electric fence would do nothing more than piss a bear off, you could make it stronger of course but then you would kill anything else that made contact with it including humans.

Scaring a bear is all well and good, we used to carry whistles that we blew at random intervals, if a bear hears you coming it is likely to run away, unless of course it's a mother with it's cubs in which case she will stand her ground and defend. Now startling a bear face to face has the exact opposite reaction they don't run, they charge and I can tell you this they can run a lot faster mad than you can scared.

You mention there are bears in zoo's so there must be an alternate way to catch them.

You are totally right, there are humane bear traps and as you say there are tranq darts.

However neither of these options does the average person any good.

When they use tranq darts to take down bear is usually done by a team of experts with all manner of special safety equipment to protect them if something goes wrong.

Bear traps are huge, expensive and again they have teams of trained experts that tranq the bear and remove it from the trap. We had them around the town I lived in.

You have clearly never lived in any area where the wildlife is any more dangerous than the Rottweiler next door.

Having living in the wilderness myself and personally getting charged by a rather large bear, I can honestly say the only option there was time for was the rifle I was carrying, and even then it took 3 shots to bring it down.

This was in Canada for the one that asked about bears in Canada

So before you continue saying you should use other means to defend yourself against wild animals may I suggest you go and spend a few months living in the wilderness and learn whats it's like so you can make an educated comment on this subject.

oh and if you think bears are not that dangerous if you handle yourself around them properly, ask Timothy Treadwell about it..... Oh wait you can't he was killed and partially eaten by the bears he loved and lived among.

A gun would be useful though in that case,as a backup.

However,this was still quite interesting though:

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/gun...nst-bears.html

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/loca...#ixzz1p8MhZj7M

The author:

http://news.byu.edu/archive12-mar-bearsandguns.aspx

The paper:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...g.342/abstract