There is no reason for anybody to own a gun.

Unlike myself, you clearly know naff all about owning/running a farm. A gun is a necessity. The alternatives that you offered up earlier in the thread are not alternatives at all, as Nightmare pointed out.

And you can ban guns full stop, but you'll always have imbeciles with mental issues, who'll find a way to cause misery for others.

That's life, unfortunately.

 

He doesn't understand guns don't kill people. People do.

 

Guns don't kill people... Rappers do.

Seriously. Switzerland has got a 100% adult male/gun ownership ratio (every man is technically part of the armed forces) and a fraction of the gun crime of America. Even Canada has a similar number of people but much less crime, so it is not the guns, or gun ownership that is the problem, but the people that own the guns.

 

I don't believe I was "defending America", I was giving some detail about the situation. It's called trying to be rational and seeing an opposing viewpoint.
I don't believe in owning guns, I personally see no need or reason to own one. I would advocate a complete ban but you have to be realistic and realise whilst in theory it may be great it's completely impractical and wouldn't work.

Again you mentioned that catching criminals should be the police's job, agreed, but you seemed to skip the part where people who live in remote areas are often 2+ hours from a police officer.

And what about hunting? People do hunt for food, you can argue "why don't they just go to the supermarket" but you are really missing the point there. I bought some wild rabbit from a butchers in Oxford earlier this year, that had been shot the previous day (the rabbit, not the butcher)....tasted far better than farmed rabbit. You can't really set traps because the rabbit will suffer more and other animals can get caught in the traps. Also it could be up to 24 hours before you then collect the rabbit so it's not fresh. Chanes are a fox will have got it in the meantime.

What you are doing, is taking your personal circumstances, the way you live and wanting to apply that to everyone.
America was built as frontier, it's history of gun ownership stretches back to the revolution and a fear afterwards that they could be invaded, it goes back to the wild west and again a need for protection. That may have chaned but they is an underlying belief in the US that you are responsible for your safety, that you are responsible for taking care of yourself and not the government. It was what founded the country.
Yes, I beleive they should have stricter gun laws, the assault rifle ban should be reintroduced, less availability for weapons, but you are comparing the UK to the US and for all their similarities they are vastly different places.
I've had many discussions with people in the US about guns, and of all the people I know there I don't know anyone who owns a handgun (only .22 rifle) but most would still defend the right of someone to own one.
Our gun control laws work well, but you could not implement them in the US.

Do you realise that when Obama was elected, because of the raft of propaganda put out by the NRA in the run up to the election, fearmongering that Obama would go after guns and start to implement stricter laws, (I saw some of the ads and they were ridiculous) sales actually went up....how can any ban work if they ban them all.....some people won't give them up.

 

“They say that 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people.”

Eddie Izzard

 

Switzerland and Canada have a far higher rate of gun crime than Britain though. There is a clear correlation between the level of gun ownership and the level of gun crime.

The key iossue for me is that it is much easier to kill someone with a gun in the heat of the moment. Whislt I don't agree that there are no circumsatances where guns may have a purpose, the vast majority of people, in England or America or anywhere else, don't need guns. They choose to.

 

To be honest I was talking about the UK until you brought america up.