A gun control idea.
Scythe
Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 46NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation, Reinforced - Silver
Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 46NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation, Reinforced - Silver
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">Came to me in the shower.</div>OK, here's my idea.
If you're caught doing something illegal with a handgun it is confiscated and destroyed. People can have their guns voluntarily destroyed or deactivated (by means of injection of a binary epoxy into the mechanisms) for a rebate at police stations.
No more guns can be sold to anyone other than police and military. A black market will exist but it wouldn't be too hard to control. Ideally guns would have electronic firing mechanisms that check the ID of the shooter before actually firing, A.L.A metal storm. This would be done such that a gun stolen from a police officer would be useless.
Eventually handguns would filter out of the market. They'd become harder and harder to find, buy or steal and gun crime would plummet. People would resort to good 'ole knives and blunt instruments.
I recognise people feel strongly about this subject so please try to keep a level head when replying.
--Scythe--
If you're caught doing something illegal with a handgun it is confiscated and destroyed. People can have their guns voluntarily destroyed or deactivated (by means of injection of a binary epoxy into the mechanisms) for a rebate at police stations.
No more guns can be sold to anyone other than police and military. A black market will exist but it wouldn't be too hard to control. Ideally guns would have electronic firing mechanisms that check the ID of the shooter before actually firing, A.L.A metal storm. This would be done such that a gun stolen from a police officer would be useless.
Eventually handguns would filter out of the market. They'd become harder and harder to find, buy or steal and gun crime would plummet. People would resort to good 'ole knives and blunt instruments.
I recognise people feel strongly about this subject so please try to keep a level head when replying.
--Scythe--
Comments
Organized black markets can actually be a semi-good thing. One or two big rackets are easier to deal with and control than a bunch of small ones. Can't wait to hear the comments on this one. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Or...we could just let people have their rights to purchase and own firearms.
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The right to bear arms is indeed given to us (in the U.S.) by The Constitution, so any argument to remove that would take some pretty good convincing. A LOT more than you'll see in this thread likely.
That being said, if guns are outlawed then only outlaws will have guns, pure and simple. GG Charlton Heston!
... and Scythe, why do your ideas most often come to you in the shower?!? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
The question is always, are we willing to give up <insert right here> in order to be safer? In this case, I don't really have an opinion. I don't own, and probably never will own, a gun so I don't think I'm qualified to tell someone else that feels they need one that they no longer have that right.
For some strange reason I like trust their work.... ... .. .
Who knows, someone may actually present a good argument against it. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
I want to be able to legally obtain a gun to defend myself against the guy who illegally obtains his.
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If i had a nickel for everytime Haze said something stupid I would be one nickel richer.
Seriously: This argument is just one step before self-justice. And as we know self justice does not work because folks tend to interpret the law differently.
Its the police job to protect the citizens from criminals. And because owning guns illegally is a crime it is also a the police job to protect you against from gun owners that dont posses their gun legally.
cut
I wont post any further, cause everytime the gun debate is brought up it enrages me! For further info on my point of view visit:
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?s=8813698788557467648&showtopic=101184&st=0" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....101184&st=0</a>
Edit: Ok, just one small thought:
You will never be able to defend yourself with your gun in a situation where a gun might indeed proof useful. This is mainly because it requires training and lots and lots and lots of training to fire a gun in a self-defense situation. Shooting some poor sod that wears the wrong uniform from 300m away is way easier than whipping out your gun and trying to nail that ###### that just stuck a knife in your leg a second ago. It's the same with people that take karate classes for self-defense. When you are put in a situation where you really might need it (multiple attackers, armed attackers etc) you will just fail. You need to learn to beat your own escape-instinct in addition to learn splitting skulls with your pinky. Reflexes are just going to take over in such stressful situations. If they don't take over the situation was not stressful enough and the use of lethal force (a gun) would have simply been out of question.
And you know what: If I were a robber and I knew that i had to expect everyone running around with a gun I would simply stab people instead of threatening them. Dead people dont shoot back and they certainly are easier to rob.
What faskalia said is very true, mostly a gun is used for a false sense of security, I really doubt illegal obtained firearms are gonna pose a problem to you unless you are directly involved with the mob <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> Wasnt it once said that most homicides are made by people who were familiar with eachother?
About the whole right-to-bear arms today, I guess since it's already allowed it's perhaps hard to do much about it. I know, it's not an argument for keeping it, but as the black-market is already if not the only supplier certainly the main one for criminals, it might not do much against crime. According to Steven Levitt in Freakonomics, which I just read, swimming pools are supposedly about 10 000 times more likely to kill your young children than a gun. But that is children we're talking about, people shoot mostly adults anyway. I also keep hearing in discussions that any weapon you buy is much more likely to be used on one of your family members than on any burglar. I don't have any citation for this, but it does sound likely as a substantial proportion of homicides happen between family members anyway.
Deciding what to do about guns in the US is a tough one, but I strongly believe countries which don't have widespread ownership of guns amongst it's inhabitants should try to keep it so. Here in Norway, even the police don't carry guns, except in special circumstances. Members who are in the national guard do get to have a standard issue automatic weapon at home though. And then some people own hunting rifles, but these are people who actually hunt.
I personally wonder if gun ownership in the US has more to do with macho ideals than any actual need to be able to have a weapon for "self-defense".
Edit: Either this topic is hawt, or I spend to much time writing my posts. To new ones while I'm typing. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
No more guns can be sold to anyone other than police and military. A black market will exist <b>but it wouldn't be too hard to control.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
false. handguns are imported daily for illegal sale.
there were a lot of laws around 200+ years ago that sound silly or uncivilized to modern day people, thats why they got changed.
Thats some high stakes. If you get caught after killing someone you get charged for more than just robbery.
Also, I think I could utilize a gun to maximize my own safety against someone who has broken into my home. I'm no weapons expert, but I'm also not an idiot, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to point and shoot.
I like the idea of being able to defend myself. As comfortable as I am with the police doing the job, having a part in saving my own life from some knife brandishing lunatic from more than two feet away kind of appeals to me. It's not dumb to say "I like to protect myself, and I can with a gun!" and it's not dumb to assume that I might be able to actually shoot someone that comes into my house. What am I fighting, a ninja?
edit:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well, I guess our founding fathers made an informed decision for the time they lived in. I assume some of it had to do with the militias who helped defeat the English and being a young and widespread country couldn't rely on government intervention to defend every civilian.
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I wanted to touch on that but you pretty much summed it up. The constitution was written with its time period in mind, and putting all your faith on, "Well, it's gotta be right, it's the constitution!" isn't the grandest idea.
Guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens maintains the idea that ultimately, it is the people that proscribe power to the government to govern over them, not the other way around. In the founding father's day, I'd imagine it was also for the purpose of overthrowing a tyrannical government, and establishing a new one in its place. Why do you think many oppressive dictatorships make owning guns illegal?
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Thats what I was always told.
Frankly, you take away my guns, you take away my right to blow you away for infringing upon my rights.
And don't give me that crap about "But we live in a century where we don't need violence to solve our problems.": When we still torture people to get information, we still need self defense.
--Scythe--
P.S. I've convinced myself that locking this thread was a mistake. I'd like to hear what people have to say about my idea specifically, not gun control in general.
Gun control needs to be focused on controlling guns, not eliminating them. EI, gun control laws should focus on registering and having all privately owned firearms accounted for, as well as eliminating black market firearm distribution, not disallowing regular citizens from owning/using firearms in safe controlled circumstances. The real trick would be to have guns where they are needed when they are needed, rather than just sort of allowing every citizen the ability to carry firearms.
P.S. I've convinced myself that locking this thread was a mistake. I'd like to hear what people have to say about my idea specifically, not gun control in general.
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As far as practical implication of <i>how to institute</i> complete and total gun control, assuming you're ok with completely revoking the right of law-abiding citizens to ever own weapons, I'd say your plan is probably as solid a first step as you're going to find.
However, you offered no justification as to why we would <i>want</i> to prohibit citizens from all future gun ownership. The constitutional argument doesn't automatically mean its a good thing to have guns, but it does mean any serious attempt to take them away requires you to get a 2/3 majority in 38 states to approve the ban, not just a 51% majority in Congress. You're gonna need a pretty damn good argument to get close to that.
As far as practical implication of <i>how to institute</i> complete and total gun control, assuming you're ok with completely revoking the right of law-abiding citizens to ever own weapons, I'd say your plan is probably as solid a first step as you're going to find.
However, you offered no justification as to why we would <i>want</i> to prohibit citizens from all future gun ownership. The constitutional argument doesn't automatically mean its a good thing to have guns, but it does mean any serious attempt to take them away requires you to get a 2/3 majority in 38 states to approve the ban, not just a 51% majority in Congress. You're gonna need a pretty damn good argument to get close to that.
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Think a little more universally, scythe is Australian, he probably is more interested in gun control relevant to his place of origin. Basically, this isn't a discussion about the American constitution, for better or for worse.
By luck however, it makes almost no difference to the actual point I was making. My point was that Scythe proposed what seemed to be a reasonably effective implementation of a policy, but offered absolutely no justification as to why the overall policy was desirable.
I consider myself lucky to live in a country where such misguided policies cannot occur without an improbably overwhelming majority of popular support. Even in Australia, though, I imagine you at least need a basic majority of support for a new policy. So how do you propose to gain that majority?
Maybe encourage the sale of sandbag shooters? Sell tear gas? Uh... dogs?
I don't know. If a robber were to break into your house or whatever situation was... Why not get a weapon that subdues the attacker in a nonlethal way? I've also thought a war with just tranquilizers would be cool.
Maybe encourage the sale of sandbag shooters? Sell tear gas? Uh... dogs?
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Psychologically, the fact that you can DIE from a gun-toting citizen breaking into a house, would serve as a better deterrent than getting zapped by electricity and lying on the floor for a while. Going to war and nobody really dying wouldn't solve the problem that they originally went to war over. Think of the mass amount of prisoners you would have to take.
Psychologically, the fact that you can DIE from a gun-toting citizen breaking into a house, would serve as a better deterrent than getting zapped by electricity and lying on the floor for a while. Going to war and nobody really dying wouldn't solve the problem that they originally went to war over. Think of the mass amount of prisoners you would have to take.
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Agreed, but it raises the point that for you personally it might be a more comfortable alternative in light of the current gun laws. Honestly I kind of prefer a seriously chocked up tazer as a stopper then I do most firearms. NO ONE is going to shrug off a high powered tazer, and it has no risk of punching a hole through your wall and giving your neighbor a reason to sue you for several million dollars is null. Also, you get the personal piece of mind of knowing that even if someone breaks into your house you have a very low chance of acctually killing them, but still as high a chance as any firearm toting lunatic of being able to protect yourself and your family. And lastly, you could basicly leave it lying around. If your kid accidentally shot them selfs with it they would just know VERY well to never touch it again, and maby take a trip to the hospital. There is virtually no risk of accidental death.
I must say it's my weapon of preferance for home defense... That being said, here in Canada it's illegal for me to own one, so I'll probably have to stick to my plan of getting a 50. cal rifle <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
This documentary I watched long ago on Discovery even claimed that over 90% of the kills during WWII was done by around 2% of the soldiers who mostly lacked empathy. (In other words, psychopaths, but then people immediately think their evil. It "just" means they lack an important human component.) Those who piloted airplanes and shot mortars from afar didn't have these problems, but soldiers who saw the figure of another human being would have a hard time killing it without proper training.
The difference in modern wars is that the military discovered this problem and simply applied a very efficient training program. You just have to make people used to the idea of killing someone else, and this takes form of shooting on increasingly realistic human figures/pictures, before playing war games were you shoot non-lethal but painful ammunition on your opposing team. And perhaps the idea of killing is much easier in today's society because of television violence. But supposedly, killing someone is <b>much harder</b> than it seems.
So perhaps it's not a bad cliché when we watch heroes struggle with "doing it" in the movies. And more relevant to this discussion, perhaps not many of us would be able to actually pull the trigger even if our life was threatened. (I imagine having a child or spouse to protect might make it much easier.)
This post is not an argument for or against anything at all in this discussion, though interesting if you were to imagine yourself in a situation with lethal weapons.
Pulling a trigger in a premeditated move is very easy given the right incentives. Protecting your family is one such incentive.
I wonder how many would actually be capable of pulling the trigger at someone. Everyone here might say it wouldn't be any problem for them, but it's easy to say now. Actually taking the life of someone else takes ignoring a lot of the wiring up in of our brains.
This documentary I watched long ago on Discovery even claimed that over 90% of the kills during WWII was done by around 2% of the soldiers who mostly lacked empathy. (In other words, psychopaths, but then people immediately think their evil. It "just" means they lack an important human component.) Those who piloted airplanes and shot mortars from afar didn't have these problems, but soldiers who saw the figure of another human being would have a hard time killing it without proper training.
The difference in modern wars is that the military discovered this problem and simply applied a very efficient training program. You just have to make people used to the idea of killing someone else, and this takes form of shooting on increasingly realistic human figures/pictures, before playing war games were you shoot non-lethal but painful ammunition on your opposing team. And perhaps the idea of killing is much easier in today's society because of television violence. But supposedly, killing someone is <b>much harder</b> than it seems.
So perhaps it's not a bad cliché when we watch heroes struggle with "doing it" in the movies. And more relevant to this discussion, perhaps not many of us would be able to actually pull the trigger even if our life was threatened. (I imagine having a child or spouse to protect might make it much easier.)
This post is not an argument for or against anything at all in this discussion, though interesting if you were to imagine yourself in a situation with lethal weapons.
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Have we managed to evolve beyond our animal instincts that make us do what it takes to survive, even if that means killing? Like any other cornered animal? The art of using troops is to put them into a situation in which they must kill or they will be killed.
There's no biological "wiring" that prevents us from killing. There are morale standards that work against killing, but we're essentially nothing more than pack animals. Let's not forget our humble origins. I would imagine that killing is a much harder thing to deal with after the fact than it is in the heat of the moment.
That's why I advocate responsible use of firearms (read: don't carry one unless you intend to use it that day). In that split second, when you lose a measure of control, it's not entirely out of question that you'll reach for that gun and do something you can't take back.
You fail to see that evolution also selects for non-egoistical behavior that also helps your genes to spread. I have several examples from my textbooks if you would like. Of course we are able to kill. But just as the face of a toddler triggers certain emotions when you look at it, certain strong emotions resist when most people are about to kill someone. All progress in weapons since the first rock have enabled people to kill from a further (emotional) distance, for good reason. It's not easy to strangle someone, and even though it's considerable easier to shoot someone, I think you underestimate ourselves.
Now a Discovery documentary might not be the greatest authority on these matters, but I'm surprised that you dismiss it out of hand in your kind of way, rapier.
You can look at this from both an individual selection and group selection, and even at the level of the gene. A gene that creates a predisposition for some altruistic behaviour may become prevalent in the gene pool through the behaviour it results in, depending on the external conditions etc.
Even some of the most primitive lifeforms have genes for altruism.
Read the wikipedia page on 'Altruism' for some general info on the subject. There are volumes of popular science on this matter.
Oh, and the comparison to 'pack animals' is poor. We exhibit many of the properties in all primate social dynamics, which are much more complex than normal pack behaviour.
I do consider us to be animals, no more, no less. Everything we have ever done, and everything we will ever do is explainable in terms of our animal nature, from the noblest of generosities to the most brutal savageries.
I do agree with Rob 100% though. In the heat of the moment ( read: under the influence of adrenaline ) it is easier to act without consideration for consequences. However, it's a complex thing to analyse, you can't look at fight or flight respone in isolation to the many other factors that influence a decision.