On 26/04/10 10:20, Juan Anonly wrote:
> On 2010-04-25 16:42:08 -0700, Dave Bugg said:
>
>> Juan Anonly wrote:
>>> On 2010-04-25 15:39:56 -0700, Omelet said:
>>>
>>>> Gun ban laws only affect law abiding citizens.
>>>
>>> Great! Where can I got to be protected by "gun ban" laws?
>>
>> Great Britain. Japan. A buncha places all around the globe.
>>
>>>> They do NOT affect criminals who will be armed regardless of laws.
>>
>>> This assumes that if we had "gun bans", then criminals would have
>>> plenty of opportunities to buy guns. But logically they would have as
>>> tough a time buying guns as anyone else. They'd have to violate laws
>>> just to get them.
>>
>> Who says that gun-toting mopes 'buy' guns? And yes, the bad-guys do
>> violate gun laws. They violate 'gun-free' zones. They illegally shoot
>> people.
>
> If gun manufacturers weren't providing guns to every man, woman and
> child they could scare the shit out of, they wouldn't have millions of
> guns to throw around. Thus bad guys couldn't buy gones that weren't
> manufactured.
>
>> And all over the world, anyone with a basic metal working shop can
>> turn out a gun.
>
> And have as good a chance of blowing off their hand as not.
>
>> Guns don't simply disappear from a society because they are made illegal.
>
> No manufacturing them has to be made illegal.
>
>> What does happen, though, is that the innocent is no longer easily
>> able to defend themselves from an overpowering bad guy. A woman is
>> left at the mercy of a rapist with a knife or bat or physical stature.
>
> Amazing to think so thousands of rapists are killed each year in the
> use. What is it--500 a day? Also, I don't hink anybody has yet said "Our
> childurn--we have to think of our childurn!"

Oh the children - we have to think of the children!

Thar. Said.

In my line of work, I have only had to pull out a revolver (legal) in a
handful of occasions. But I am being exposed to only a very minor tip of
the landfill, so to speak. And this landfill is for human refuse, my end
being fraudsters, child support payment avoiders, and so forth.

But that being said, here in Oz, there are no legal guns unless you have
a specific purpose for it - then it must be registered, legal forms ad
infinitum, and heaven forbid it's used on a person. Even then, you're
only allowed particular calibres and nothing semi- or fully-automatic.

It hasn't stopped people from using them, however - only the people in
their homes who are worried about laws. Gun-related crime still does
happen, but so does other violent crime. Because the criminals who can't
get hold of guns use something else instead. Like knives. Or batons. Or
acid.

The end result has been that yes, gun-related deaths and violence has
dropped in Australia. But we still have crime, and people still get into
ER rooms from having been beaten to near-death, or stabbed (I have been,
twice), or set on fire.

Someone recently said that "guns were a blight on the world". I guess
that's because swords, bows, arrows, clubs, and worse weren't. I guess
having gunpowder is what makes the difference.