Weapons are created through knowledge. The only way to make it not available is to make the people dumb.
Are you trying to suggest that most guns in the US are made by hand by individuals? Because I'm pretty damn sure that's not the case.
You say unnecessary like every person in the world is pure of heart.
No, I say unnecessary like "why does an office-worker need to own a handgun", or why does a civilian need to own 4 light machine-guns, or an automatic rifle strapped to a car? How often does a person in America walk down the street and get confronted by a roving Army or people waving handguns at each other? How often have you ever needed to defend yourself from another gun? How many gun-owners have ever fired a gun out of self-defence, or have had offence avoid them because they own a gun?
But nowhere has it said that you need to specifically crack down on the privileges of a people and take away their choices and responsibility to own such machinations.
I'm not saying that the constitution was written perfectly. That's kind of my point, that people take this ancient text and abide by it regardless. It's not relevant to own a gun anymore, and it's certainly not relevant even to the standards of the time it was written that you can own a fully-automatic gun.
This is a major problem with the way American philosophy plays out, and honestly, it's one of the reasons why there are such a popular disapproval of America in foreign culture.
America and Americans believe they are entitled to Freedom.
You're not.
The citizens of a nation are not entitled to a Freedom to do whatever the forget they want. This is not how a normal society works. Individuals shouldn't be allowed to take up lude, crude and dangerous activities that endanger others solely because they claim they are Free. If every richardhead could do whatever the hell they wanted, including owning killing machines, then nobody is safe and nothing gets done. Yeah, America gets things done, because you're not all free to do whatever you want (you're constrained by laws, and the need for money and society and other such things), but the American psyche still appears to stick to the view that it can do whatever it wants because it's declared itself Free.
This is true. However making it less legal will only make it worse. Better for a criminal to be taking a risk rather than a stroll when breaking into a house.
Better for no criminal to be breaking into a house at all is a better argument. Focus on education and thinning the poverty-rich divide.
This is still not an argument for guns.
Criminals have everything to be afraid of breaking into a house. People own other weapons than guns. There are these magnificent items called knives, and clubs and fists and dogs. People still own those and they still live in houses.
And chances are they're not as likely to be used to kill someone else who isn't breaking in, or to be accidentally used by a child to injure or kill itself or others.
Its the same thing when they tried to ban alcohol during that one point in time in the states i don't even remember. The illegal market only thrived and people suffered more from it.
Comparing the abolition of alcohol, a stimulating drug used for over 10,000 years and bred into the culture of every single nation and tribe that has existed on the planet since that time, is not the same as banning a lethal and dangerous ranged weapon that has existed in it's current form for 100 years.
Yeah, I'm sure there will be gun-smuggling. There is in Britain.
But I am pretty confident to say that removing guns from the general public will decrease gun-crime due to it's lack of availability and the fact that it's no longer at hand for the non-criminally oriented to use in times of passion and madness.
We don't have guns in Britain, but they still exist and are still smuggled among certain criminals. But most of the criminals operating in this country are petty robbers and thieves and druggies, the likes of which aren't so focussed on high-stakes crime that they need to import smuggled guns to thrive. I'd happily say that most criminals in America aren't committing crimes so severe that they would necessarily need a gun to carry it out.
England has less gun crime because they are smaller. Size definitely matters. However other methods of violence as a result have skyrocketed.
When I say England has less gun crime I'm not meaning by number. Of course we do, when America has over 10x the population. But by proportion our gun crime is lower. It's always going to be lower solely by the fact that we don't get accidental gun crime, since guns aren't available to be used by accident as they are in America, let alone it's use in planned crime.
And yes, other methods have risen in the UK. But that's because crime is always going to exist and people are always going to try and defend themselves or enforce their crime.
The difference is that most people can run away from a knife, compared to a bullet, and no one is going to take an entire school hostage and systematically kill tens of students and teachers armed solely with a penknife and baseball bat.
Sorry for the long post and it not being in a great state. I'm tired and all the best arguments turn up at bedtime. :/
If it's not lost in a sea of posts when I get back I'll try and respond to any replies. Or send me a PM if you want to discuss anything I've said some more.
