Gun Control (Argument and source submission thread)

I've been reading a lot of misinformation about firearm possession in Switzerland in the U.S. media. There seems to be a common believe that Switzerland's a gun-toting paradise with low crime because of high gun ownership numbers. Some media outlets even claim that it is mandatory to own automatic guns in Switzerland. Here's the reality:

- members of the armed forces CAN but don't have to keep their firearm at home. This has to do with Switzerland's rapid mobilization planning and the fact that all armed forces members are required to train at a shooting range in their community once a year (or more often, if they don't meet the minimal criteria). They do not, however, keep any ammunition for those guns at home, so the guns are largely useless for self-defense purposes.

- it's illegal to possess and purchase automatic weapons in Switzerland for private purposes

- the lock and the gun have to be kept separate in your home. It's illegal to keep them together.

- carrying guns is illegal unless you have a carry permit. These are only issued to police and security services.

- if you want to buy a gun, there's a 3-6 month process involving police checks etc.

- you can lose your gun permit at any time if you have a criminal record. That doesn't mean you have to have killed anyone - it's enough if you get caught for speeding and get fined more than 500 bucks and any other offense that carries a fine of more than 500 bucks. The police then will collect your guns and destroy them.

- people of some nationalities are banned from purchasing and owning guns

- it's illegal to transport a gun anywhere except to a gun range and if the police finds a gun on you, it'd better be unloaded with the lock removed. Plus you actually have to prove that you're on your way to a gun range.

- it's illegal to fire a gun on private property

- if you threaten a burglar with a gun it's only considered self-defense if that person is also aiming a gun at you. If he or she isn't, you're in deep sh**

- despite these relatively strict laws, Switzerland has one of the highest suicide rates, directly connected with the high number of guns in circulation. The number of suicides and violent crime in general has decreased over the last years, in direct relation to tougher gun laws.

So you see: the reason why gun crime is low here is not the 'added safety' (as some claim) of a high number of guns in circulation. It's the tough regulation.

I grew up in a very remote area. Heck I still live in a very remote area. I grew up with weapons as we were farmers and I learned how to crack off a coyote running full tilt up to 300 yards with one shot. We had to defend our livestock against predators. I thought nothing of carrying a .45 while out riding in case I came up upon a coyote/fox or even a bear when I was checking fence lines.

Every year during hunting season we have a huge family get together and pranks are pulled, tons of bad movies watched and all kinds of fart jokes because of the copious amounts of beans we all consume. (They are cheap, good filler, and keep us all warm) Guns are everywhere when my families house becomes deer camp.

It was not until I was in my mid teens I was even allowed to carry a gun and when we finally were allowed to go hunting by ourselves (my father would take us kids out with him on the stand) we got one bullet. Just one. My fathers words were "If you cannot make a clean and safe kill in one shot, you do not deserve two". Made us learn to wait for that correct moment and if it did not come we could not take that shot. We never hunted for trophies, always meat. Whatever we brought down was butchered and shared with the entire family no matter who shot it.

For us guns were a tool, we never ever thought to aim them at a human being. In my world everyone had them and they were there to hunt with and enjoy as a family together. Then my first wake up call to what was going on in the rest of the world was the Columbine Shooting in 1999. For me that was significant because it was the first time a shooting of that magnitude was heavily covered by the media and it was eye opening for a teenager who never considered using a gun in a situation like that. Now obviously I was not naive enough to believe that never happened either, my family were and still are active members of the military, PD's and I'm a student of history. People have killed each other with various weapons since we have figured out how to kill animals for food. For me however it was a shock to know that some people had such a hard time expressing their feelings that the only way they felt they could get their message across was to walk into a school of innocent people and open fire.

Since then we have had a staggering amount of shootings. I agree with a lot of what has been said here, we need to look deeper at this issue, we need to stop pretending that America does not have a serious mental health problem. I'm not saying drag my feet either because even though I am a avid hunter and a gun owner I absolutely support firmer gun control.

Firmer as in I believe we need to stop the gun show sales etc. In the case of the Charleston shooting, that young man got his gun as a gift for his 21st birthday. I do not know what the answer is to this very important question but we need to start talking about it as a country. This whole conceal and carry thing is a good thing, and I agree if you want to carry a gun fine but now I have customers that come in carrying .45s into the store because they are paranoid and scared from all the media hype. We have NEVER had a situation where a weapon was needed. Period. I get nervous because a lot of those people are exactly what has been talked about in that Mr. Crazy Paranoid who watches all the news and believes every word of it goes out and gets a gun and goes through a conceal and carry class and gets his permit to carry a weapon. He now decides because the world is an awful place and he needs to protect his family at all costs has to carry a weapon 24/7 because you never know......he comes into our store to buy papers with a gun strapped to his hip ready to open fire on anyone that could be suspicious and then we have another bad situation because Mr Paranoid thinks he's helping when in fact he has become a danger to not only us but himself. Was that gun needed?

Let me flip that scenario. I'm going out to the barn, with a .45 and open the dairy to find coyotes in with livestock. Yeah. I'm going to open fire because once they are in they have learned to come in and will be back. Perhaps they have already killed a cow or calf. Can I make a serious call on the value of life? Can Mr. Paranoid? Now granted I'm talking coyotes, not human beings. I'm doing it to protect my family and investment in livestock but in Mr. Paranoids head isn't he doing the same? Again referencing Charleston the young man was quoted as saying "No, you've raped our women, and you are taking over the country ... I have to do what I have to do." Obviously this young man believes he's of solid mind but in truth he's got some very severe mental problems and not trying to play into what the media of the US is all speculating we need to come together and try to figure out how we can stop this from happening.

Is there a solution? I don't know. Banning all guns is stupid and will not happen but how do we allow responsible gun owners to continue to have a wonderful family tradition and keep the Mr (and Mrs) Paranoids from deciding they need to take matters into their own hands? Granted too, I live in a very remote area, guns are a way of life. I've certainly visited inner cities, but there too the gun violence is abhorrent.

Here is a site on gun violence:
http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

So far this year there has been 5,800 deaths in the United States due to gun violence according to this site. Now very true a tragedy just unfolded where many people were killed but what about the other 5,790 that did not get media coverage. There has been 11, 430 people injured because of gun violence, just this year alone.

What do we do?

Locksley wrote: I appreciate the replies everyone. I'm hopeful more will decide to chime in!

I have been specifically avoiding this thread because my position (and the nature in which I generally express it) have been restricted by the original post. In another thread on the topic, I might be of more use.

I have a lot of thoughts on this subject but I'll try to be brief. Ryujin pretty much covered my views. Personally, I carry a gun every day (except while I'm at work. Banks frown on that :laugh: ). I also carry a knife, both my hands, my feet, knees, elbows, and most importantly my brain. All are tools designed to respond to different levels of danger. The fewer I have to use the happier I am, but I have them just in case.

My favorite quote about gun control came over a thousand years before guns did (maybe closer to two thousand?)

Plato wrote: Good people don't need laws to tell them to act responsibly and bad people will find a way around the laws.

You asked for sources. Here's one of mine. Chicago crime rate drops as concealed carry applications surge. Got this from the Washington Times. I posted this same article in this thread a few months back. The link should take you to the page where I posted the link so that you can get straight to the discussion afterwards, though I recommend reading the whole thread. Lots of good stuff about carrying weapons and how it applies to Jedi specifically.

usa accounts for more than half of all firearm production in the world pretty much always

http://insightfulinteraction.com/armsproducers.html

ive also been avoiding this thread, but its been opened up so

gun ownership rises, crime drops
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/11/200671-fbi-now-know-record-numbers-gun-sales-means-gun-crimes-america/

however, its also important to understand that at the street level, a huge percentage of the guns used for crime originated with legal purchases

they were either sold "under the table", or stolen

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2013/jun/11/criminals-use-stolen-guns-atf-study-says/110439/

i support gun control, but imo it should start with the government

why do city and county police need bayonets, grenade launchers, drones, and tanks?

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2014/0909/Ferguson-fallout-Do-the-police-really-need-12-000-bayonets

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/18/1385703/-Police-union-demands-they-keep-their-bayonets-grenade-nbsp-launchers#

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/police-drones/

apparently to use them against protesters

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/24/states-police-militarization_n_6932576.html

what it comes down to for me is that i know without a doubt that it is appropriate for ME to be allowed to own firearms

but everybody feels that way lol

i think its realistic to belive that over time the number of guns "on the street" could be reduced with the right policies in place

but with america behind most of the gun sales to criminals in the first place (at the global level; we sell guns to damn near ANYBODY - and when we dont sell them directly to international criminals,warlords, dictators ect, we sell them by proxy to third party middlemen)
and the police department training and equipping to pretty much be at war with the population, why should i obey gun control laws even if they do get passed?

its a farce

many people outside of america do not get it - they talk about us being gun crazy (and maybe we are) but something that has to be understood is that guns helped settle america

a part of that is pretty tragic and shameful, insofar as how the natives fared in that general endeavor

but when you hear the words "wild west"

well, there was a time when pretty much EVERYTHING was wild

besides bears and mountian lions and wolves and boar, there were vast spaces of open terrain, where anything could happen (and did) and a persons life was pretty much always a gambit

if something happens to you in the middle of nowhere, youre on your own

thats what early americans had to live with and theres always been a pretty strong sense for a lot of us that our lives and safety are our own personal responsibility

and given the hostile and downright predatory nature of life itself, that means guns at some point

so it is an indelible part of our cultural history to own firearms, even though it most definitely has its dark side

and as we are a nation that would not exist were it not for the decision to rebel against an unjust government, i dont think its so far fetched that we might be a bit suspicious of our government, (hence the idea that we need to be armed to prtoect ourselves from govt tyranny)
especially now that there are no more "unsettled" continents to run to

i want to say that i enjoyed Roz's post especially

and i agree that the broader discussion (in terms of the national discussion of the issue) imo should be more focused on how we view ourselves at the individual and collective levels, and what ideas we promote about how we ought to treat ourselves and how we ought to treat each other

rather than our personal "rights" to own guns, or personal "rights to be safe" from people who own guns, we should ALL look to the issue of our personal DEBT to each other
to the collective
and to our overall health and development psychologically at the individual and cultural level, and see where THAT conversation takes us

i think roz's family and mine would likely get along very well...i grew up around guns myself...


i should probably also point out that the media doesn't usually cover the events in which someone having a firearm has prevented a tragedy....the media tends to only cover (over cover) tragedies, and of course this can lead to the impression that they happen more often than they used to, crazy people have been slaughtering others for ages, and with media coverage it can "inspire" others wanting their 15 minutes of notoriety which is why these things usually occur in little clusters...

RyuJin wrote: i should probably also point out that the media doesn't usually cover the events in which someone having a firearm has prevented a tragedy....the media tends to only cover (over cover) tragedies, and of course this can lead to the impression that they happen more often than they used to, crazy people have been slaughtering others for ages, and with media coverage it can "inspire" others wanting their 15 minutes of notoriety which is why these things usually occur in little clusters...

There needs to be an extra 'Thank you' button.

Goken wrote: There needs to be an extra 'Thank you' button.

Thank You!

OB1Shinobi wrote: i support gun control, but imo it should start with the government

i wanted to expand on this

to my way of thinking, carry permits, waiting periods, restrictions on what you can own and especially on what you can run around town carrying in your car or knapsack

these kinds of things ARE gun control

im ok with gun CONTROL

im NOT ok with gun BANNING

I know of a strong argument FOR gun ownership: We live in a fascist police state and they freely exercise violence against peaceful protesters. That being said, I have only one handgun and one rifle. I don't NEED either of them but I use the rifle to kill game at long range and the handgun for protection against bears/lions in the wilderness. I don't really need them in the city but cities are a distant relic of a legacy civilization that failed long ago.