Should Guns be Outlawed in the U.S.A?

Why do you want to rephrase what I said? I thought it was pretty clear. Do you just want something to disagree more easily with? Don't you find it concerning?

 

The US conducted a large scale experiment in making something illegal country wide, it was called Prohibition.

What was the result? A massive increase organized crime and violence. A massive amount of money poured into crime. People turning to crime because that was where the money was and before you say that they turned to crime because they were poor, that doesn't explain people, who were already rich, like Kennedy turning to running bootleg liquor to increase their fortunes. Also the fact that otherwise ordinary citizens came to view the laws of the land to be overly restrictive and were something to be flaunted at will. And all of this continued until Prohibition was repealed.

Was the lesson learned? No. The drug laws have become the new Prohibition and with the same results and now it is even spreading to other countries like Columbia and Mexico. And now you suggest we add guns to the list of things that organized crime can make massive amounts of money from, by making guns even harder to get.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. You have not learned from history. You keep proclaiming that we need more gun control to get the "guns out of the hands of criminals" but in fact history shows that the harder you make it for people to have guns, the more and more you will put the control of guns into the hands of organized crime and put more money into their pockets so they can pay for more crime and corruption, not to mention more violence.

As for your; other types of crime such as house invasion, even that would be drastically reduced because of junkies not having to pay artificially high drug prices to feed their habits and not already thinking that they are criminals for their addiction. Plus law enforcement can turn away from "drug crimes" and focus on these other actual crimes.

 

I did not rephrase what you said.

I asked for you to rephrase it, because it wasn't clear what you were saying.

I merely asked for more information about what you said and didn't even disagree or even make a statement about what you said.

But if you are afraid that what you said won't stand up to scrutiny, then fine don't answer the questions.

It's a free world and you have a right to believe anything you want but if you actually want to discuss your ideas, it would help if you explained them when asked for an explanation.

 

It's just you gave me two options to rephrase, neither of which I had in mind. If you're interested, I merely think that certain attitudes encourage criminal behaviour, one of them being an overprotective attitude to property. We've gone from a fairly open society with no side fences, our front doors unlocked to full-blown security systems and ten foot high walls surrounding our land. I don't really buy the excuse that this is because of the rise of criminals, rather it's more likely the reverse. Becoming so attached to your belongings you fear everyone and everything, all become your enemy. With that attitude, it's almost predestined that some turn to crime as if society reserved a place for them there with no other available.

 

I'm sorry you felt that way, I only was giving "suggestions" and was not meaning to try and confine you to them.

I am interested. Unlike some, I do not ask questions just to attack but ask to better understand what has been said.

Of course if I don't agree I might "attack" what has been said but that is not the intent of my questions.

Actually I was kind of thinking that what you were saying was along these lines but did not want to assume that I knew what you were saying.

I guess this begs the question, what do you believe an overprotective attitude to property to be.

The reason I ask is that I had a nice bike which I kept outside with a small locking cable to attach it to the porch. Not being a heavy cable someone cut the cable and took the bike, so would you say I had an overprotective attitude to property, because of the small locking cable or perhaps was I just a victim of an overprotective attitude to property that is pervasive among the people around me?

Also, not to say that loved ones are property but do you feel that the overprotective attitude extends to loved ones as well?

 

Brother.. roo says. and Jo. what people SAY is of no consequence. What they DO.. is all that matters.

What people think means nothing.. if it is not acted on or laid out for others to learn.

Imagine being in orbit.. and watching 'us' scurry back and forth. 99.95% of us DO NOTHING to change this. This Ant heap.
For that is what we are. drones

Occasionally one goes haywire.. we call them insane. But are they?
maybe the gun massacre is the only outlet for their tiny minds to do SOMETHING

A thought to ponder. no?

 

Yes, it is.

I too sometimes look at the world from a similar viewpoint but what I see is that each person has the ability to change the world, however minute that change may be world wide, as you zero in on that person you will find that the affect is actually quite large on a person to person basis.

 

Am I missing something? I see three sentences ending with question marks. What was rephrased? I too was awaiting clarification as to what might be concerning about people thinking property needing to be protected.

 

You can desire all the guns you want, but if there's nothing illegal to use to attain power, you don't have power. A gun doesn't give you power.

You're RATHER deluded, you do not know, magically, better than all the deluded "sheeple", you do not have a right to govern because you feel that you know better than everybody what is best for them. That's what our current government is doing, it's a fiasco.

As to whoever (sorry, i have a rew pages to read here) asked if I was advocating the legalization of methamphetamine, YES: drug laws do NOT make people choose what drugs they will or will not take. They simply determine who will and will not be punished for those choices.

Someone else hit on this (don't remember who, either) in the last few pages, with the example of heroin. It's illegal, so surly nobody uses it, right? No. Where there's a will there's a way, where there's a demand there's a supply, and simply punishing people for doing what they want won't stop them or make them want different. Only education can do that.

Any drug that you think should be illegal is one more drug that you think should be MORE dangerous and cause MORE suffering than it would if it was legal. And the MORE addictive and dangerous a drug is, the MORE powerful a tool it is to organized crime.

Methamphetamine is very dangerous. It's also a prescription drug in the united states. It gets MUCH more dangerous when people are taking black market bathtub meth. But simply because it's illegal won't stop anyone who would take it.

Furthermore, in a free country (something I AM arguing for-we've seen that the "greater good" doesn't work, and hasen't since it was first introduced thousands of years ago) you can NOT be told what chemicals to take, especially ones relating to your own consciousness. That is tyranny over your neurotransmitters: you have a RIGHT to choose to use those chemicals, if you wish. Because people choose to hurt themselves is not an excuse to take away their rights. It is their inherent right to hurt themselves.

 

Yes, all of those things. When I lived in the Netherlands the first time I rode my bike when I went to lock it the Dutch people I was with laughed and said "it'll be fine" and it was. I never needed to lock it the whole time I was there. I think if you lock it, people from birth learn what others consider valuable, which becomes embedded in the culture and seek to acquire it by any means. There's no real reason to steal a bike, but hey, if someone locks it then I want it. Of course that's not exactly the way it works, but generally I think it's the procedure. We are meant to live in a community, which entails trust. Or do you think securing everything has absolutely no effect?

 

I love the humor sometimes found in these forums.

It now appears we could put an end to car theft by leaving the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked.

 

I not sure how I feel about what you are saying. It is a relatively new concept for me and I'm interested in hearing more. I know the people have a tendency live up to or down to the expectations you have of them, so that may extend to locking things up.

I would still like to know your thoughts on my earlier question:
Not to say that loved ones are property but do you feel that the overprotective attitude extends to loved ones as well?

 

Depends what you mean. Of course I think you need to protect children, vulnerable people. I don't think it's right to treat people differently full stop. Loved ones entails others who are unloved. Is it really love when you protect something to the extent of isolating yourself and them from everyone else? I tend to think love is unbounded, but that's only my definition. I realize most of the world thinks differently, which is, in my opinion, creating an enormous mess in the world.

I'm also interested in your opinion on this because I think it's inseparable from the gun issue.

 

Oh okay, I was enjoying getting to know this concept but my feelings are a little like what Individual said;

I feel that there are those, the vast majority I believe, that will not steal no matter what others do.

I also feel that there are those, a small minority, that will steal no matter what you do.

But then there is a middle ground of people that can be tempted by theft. It is this middle ground that can be best benefited by your concept.

Myself I have always gone with the thought that locks only keep honest people honest and if someone is a thief there is really not much that can be done to stop them.

But what you have said has given me pause for thought.

Also if what you said would work on everybody, then yes, it would be inseparable from the gun issue but I would have to say that even in the Netherlands bikes are still stolen, although they may be few in number and even in countries that have gun bans there are still criminals using guns in violent crimes.

 

I can agree with all of that. For me, I wasn't thinking of what would work and what would not, only that it is an ontological issue as well as a practical one, which is basically what you have said about the nature of people. It is not clear at all to me that one or two external factors are responsible for elevated murder or crime rates. If it were that simple we would have fixed it already.

 

Q

So was that person born a criminal? And if they were not born to be a criminal why did they become a ‘criminal’?

LOL and that is your rational counter argument that you think I’m wrong because you think I’m wrong? Sorry doesn’t work.

The problem is that all you seem to have is your disagreement; you don’t seem to have any rational or reasonable counter arguments.
I’m sorry to say but all to often people make false statements about what I’ve supposedly said, meaning I have to repeat myself.

LOL just living does not mean you gain instant enlightenment on everything. You have to work at it and so far I’m sorry to say the evidence points to you being rather deficient in that area.


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Q
Can you give me some examples of me doing these things?

Examples?

Where are the examples?

Have you actually got any examples?

All of these examples came from the same part of your post (killing, maiming… messed up yard…). If you need more you’ll just have to look – they’re not hard to find. Recently, many times in your responses to OWB's posts. If you can’t believe it, take a poll.
But you haven’t given any examples - you have just claimed that there are some, that’s not the same thing.
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Q

LOL – your surprised reaction only seems to indicate that you hadn’t read this before?

Another laugh out loud – been unable to actually think up a rational counter argument, you’ve decided to try and claim that since I don’t know every single American personally I must be wrong – sorry that doesn’t work either.

I’ve been through this before (many times) and explained it (many times).

The views I’ve presented are based on what pro-gunners have stated here on these forums (over the last 10 years) and in other conversations outside of these forums or offline. A large number of studies, websites, articles and books that I’ve read about the subject, some that I’ve found myself and others that have been pointed out to me by those on differing sides of the argument.
I do not claim to know the truth, but I have put forward a theory that seem to stand up to scrutiny (so far) because people continue to come here (or write elsewhere) who seem to back up what I’ve said.

I think you really need to re-read my posts.

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Q
OK the thing is that this is an important subject in any understanding of the US gun issue

But it seems to have a lot to do with the feeling of need or desire for guns. As you go on to confirm. Which means it is an important subject in any understanding of the US gun issue. As I ask - are people born as criminals? And if they were not born to be criminals why did they become criminals?

Which is exactly my point, people fear being a victim of a crime so much that they feel they need a gun as protection.

Thank you – again this is exactly the point I’ve been making - people are so frightened of the society they are in that they feel they need a gun as protection from it.

Why?

The first two - left alone and being able to provide for their families, is normal most places – the third seems closer to the wish of someone living in a war zone, rather than someone supposedly living in a peaceful country. To place it so near the top of the list just seems to highlight the high level of fear.

Thank you – again this is exactly the point I’ve been making - people are so frightened of the society they are in that they feel they need a gun as protection from it.
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There is this perception amongst many pro-gunners that guns are the thing that makes the difference, while other socio-economic factors are largely or totally ignored even when those seem to have a much greater impact on the levels of crime in a society.

I mean if you take out gun related homicides from the US crime figures they are not that much different from those of many European countries that have gun restrictions (although it is incredible difficult to compare any crime statistics other than homicide).

This would mean that the assertion by some pro-gunners that crime would be much greater without legal gun ownership would mean that the US had far greater social problems than those other countries and that tackling those problems might have a greater impact on crime than more gun ownership.

 

OWB

But from your criticism of it and many of your comments since would seem to indicate that you clearly didn’t understand it.
In post 460 you gave your criticism of that post and from post 480 onward we discussed that criticism. It became clear in those discussions that you were not that clear on what was said or why it was said, and I have been trying my best to explain since then but frankly you seem more interested in silly ‘point scoring’ than trying to understand, which is sad because the debate would go a lot smoother and be a lot more interesting if you tried.

As I’ve said you clearly didn’t understand the "Can guns save you from suppression? – thread".

So only once someone ‘misused’ a gun, so someone with a history of violence is ok, someone that has committed a robbery with the threat or use of violence is ok, what about someone who is a gun owner but doesn’t use it while committed a robbery?…etc…

If you have criticisms of a post give them and we can discuss them, the problem seem to be that you are more interested in trying to score points than actual debate (as can be seen by your recent relies).

But I notice you don’t seem to have a counter argument (beyond just saying I’m wrong because I’m wrong).

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