Hmm... You hate the fact the government and sjws enforce/want to enforce bullstuff laws that water down video games that you want to play for the fear of making you a violent person, but you don't want people to have to right own a weapon because they might kill someone.
I don't sit in my house paranoid some guy is going to run around the corner and kill me with the brown town probe from Saint's Row IV. Guns are a physical item with dangerous properties in the wrong hands. I don't trust that people will get the right training, and/or won't be subject to human error (holding a grudge or whatnot).
The idea of the Australian video game laws is to keep children safe because apparently people are too stupid and violent video games only make them violent. Like wise apparently people are stupid for the fact that they might shoot themselves or someone.
You are correct, but these laws fail to acknowledge that adults exist and should have enough common sense to watch/play any content. Hyper-violence I might understand, but banning drugs and love when these games almost never show the results as positive is rightly bullstuff.
The games that were banned and made me angry were banned for drug references or "over-loveualisation" (read: included some kind of brown town probe). Australia (no longer) seems to have a problem with violence in games, since Manhunt, Left 4 Dead 2, F.E.A.R. 3 and so on are all available in their full, non-censored versions.
Owning a gun is sort of like having a drivers license and a car. It requires some common sense, some safety instruction, and careful use. I can't just drive on any side of the road I chose, nor can I shoot towards a populated area or toward the sky. Stop signs and lights have to stopped at and signs saying that firearms are not allowed on the premises have to be obeyed.
Guns can be used for recreational shooting(shooting at cans, paper targets), hunting, and home defense. Likewise a car can be used for recreational driving, transportation, and racing.
I understand this, and yet, people break rules. People are busted for speeding, drink-driving, hit and runs and more with a worrying frequency. It doesn't matter how much you try to train and punish people (and tell everybody about said punishments), people will break rules.
I'm happy to admit I'm paranoid. While I certainly don't live in a Ghetto or Africa or whatnot, I still live in an area where tensions are high, and people are quick to engage in violence. There isn't more people being killed simply because fists can only do so much damage before a person either gets bored or believes the cops are after them. I don't want to take any chances that these people who perform violence on anybody who looks at them funny (I'm being quite serious here, we have many mentally unhealthy, drunk and/or 'primal' individuals) will target me for whatever reason.
A gun doesn't jump out at you, it's an inanimate object if you keep it unloaded, finger off the trigger, and don't drop when it's loaded, no harm will be caused. Like wise a car won't turn on and drive over you as long as the key is out of the ignition and the parking break is on.
While I get where you're coming from, I'm not stupid enough that I think it's the gun's fault. It's the person pulling the trigger, and that's what I'm scared of.
There is legal gun ownership in Australia, but it is highly restricted and maintained. Very few people legally get weapons for recreational hunting/shooting.
As for home-defence, I simply don't believe having a gun in your home will make the situation better. If the robber were to disarm you, if the gun was in the wrong location, if the safety was not set correctly and you accidentally held the gun incorrectly...the situation would be a lot worse than a few stolen possessions. I don't believe we have enough home invasions in Australia to justify weapons to protect homes.
The incidents that happen at shooting rangers like the kid killing a man with a uzi or the kid who lost control of a mac10 and shot himself, or the woman who got killed by a 500 S&W could have all been avoided. Not because we have the right/privilege to use these things, but because no one stuck around to enforce the safety rules, no one stopped to think of what could go wrong. Criminals don't play the rules, they will break the law no matter what.
I'm not even remembering these incidents. I don't know about any specific gun incidents or statistics. I'm simply thinking about the consequences of people improperly handling weapons, which would be unfortunately common.
Australia is stereotypically lazy, right down to our accents. It is unfortunately true. We do have bright individuals, but the majority of our society is made-up of people "just passing". People like to do things their way and the easy way. It would take a lot of gun incidents on our land for anybody to take gun training and safety procedure seriously, and I can't accept that.
I'm not some edgelord anarchist neckbeard. As I said earlier, nothing is perfect. James Madison himself once said "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." and he is right. The government, the police, and military are necessary for maintaining order, without order there is only chaos. They might not be perfect, but having them around is a necessity. The criminals, bandits, and thieves don't care about the rules, society, people's welfare, laws, or government. Just themselves.
I hold you as one of the people I respect most on the forums, and I believe that the Government, Police, Military etc all hold essential purpose. Police and Military SHOULD hold guns with proper training. What we should have is more trained police officers to maintain order and find the criminals.
I trust these official organisations to use their weapons properly, to be properly trained and to be well stocked for any emergency. I'd be happy to pay taxes to better equip these people. I simply don't want ordinary civilians to gain easier access to weapons. By keeping it strictly to officials and criminals, I feel life is a bit safer, since you eliminate a large proportion of people where anything could happen.
On your freedom paragraph;
I don't mean to insult or imply America is any way worse off for allowing easier access to weapons. It is what it is. I'm just comfortable in a society where the majority of people I encounter will be less dangerous than if they were to have access to arms. Knife, glass bottle and fist attacks are common, but I still feel as though they present less danger since there would be a higher chance of survival (provided the person isn't stabbing you 27 times).
This is a different culture. Australia is supposed to be a multi-national country where we are free-spirits who take life as it comes. The issue is that this society includes a lot of people who act on emotion and instinct rather than logic. Add in a lot of racial tension, and you have a backdrop for a pretty bad location to introduce weapons into.
I like Paintball, and I enjoy being able to use those guns, and I would love to fire a real gun. I'd have no problem with people learning how to use and store a weapon safely, and for there to be more places to recreationally use weapons. I just absolutely do not trust the majority of people to use weapons with safety in mind. We pretty much abuse anything we get, whether it be alcohol or other drugs, speeding in vehicles, mosh-pits during music concerts, and guns would be the same thing.
