Ban every gun

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The conclusion is (Guns/Amount of training) x (Cultural value of property/Cultural value of life) x Violence of culture should be kept at a low value.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
How about those of us born from human parents?
*edit* and how 'bout the daughters of bitches, huh? SEXIST! Someone light the Charlie Symbol! :p
I think it's been pages and days since a female partook in this thread - if at all, my memory's a bit fuzzy going that far back. As for born from humans, I'll believe that when I believe that.
 
Switzerland has a ludicrous numbers of assault rifles because you get one for national service and are expected to keep it in your closet just in case the Belgians decide to resolve the Chocolate Wars in more direct fashion.

They avoid high numbers of gun deaths through almost every additional factor that's been mentioned in this thread so far (military service/training, sense of group identities, monocultural values, an extremely low rate of poverty aided by very well-funded social services, etc.). Suicide rate is relatively high, though.
 
holy shit my dog-whistle just went off ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
*shrug*

Switzerland is really not especially ethnically diverse, it's relatively small, and the cities have extremely low poverty rates. There's very little in the way of cultural/socioeconomic dynamism that typifies large parts of the US, and when that monoculture is focused on being affluent and socially-liberal (in the support programs kind of way), the social circumstances that contribute to a violent crime culture are going to be much more rare.
 
First of all, it's the perfect example. Those guns, andf all that training, won't help them one bit when the Beglians come. Chocolate is ours, dammit.

Secondly, while you're pretty much entirely right about Switzerland, one small addendum: they do have several cultures (don't call a Retro-Roman a German :p), heck, they have 4 different national languages, and the majority of some cantons is a different ethnicity and language than that of others. They all still get along, because, above all, they all feel Swiss. They're very proud of being from Tirol or whatever other canton they may hail from, but they're first and foremost Swiss. They feel united and whatever. While there are some cultural differences, they accept differences and work well together. No racial/ethnic/cultural tensions whatsoever. Feel free to compare and contrast to Belgium :p
 
Different cultures/ethnicities/whatever come into much more conflict when the differences in standard of living (some being rich and some poor) appear.
 
Certainly not monoethnic, but the cultural differences are highly exaggerated (also, Romansch are a poor example - there's so few of them, being one is a matter of national pride; it's sort of like being Native American without the recent history of genocide). 4 different national languages is a lot less interesting when 65% of the country speaks one of them as a primary, and every Swiss high school student learns at least two of the others in school as a matter of course since elementary.

Which means that, unlike your country Bubble, the Swiss won't spend most of the war wondering what the fuck their own leaders are saying. :p
 
Certainly not monoethnic, but the cultural differences are highly exaggerated (also, Romansch are a poor example - there's so few of them, being one is a matter of national pride; it's sort of like being Native American without the recent history of genocide). 4 different national languages is a lot less interesting when 65% of the country speaks one of them as a primary, and every Swiss high school student learns at least two of the others in school as a matter of course since elementary.

Which means that, unlike your country Bubble, the Swiss won't spend most of the war wondering what the fuck their own leaders are saying. :p

You may mean that as a joke, but during WWI that was a real problem. All Belgian officers spoke French - they had to. Most of the actual soldiers, though, spoke Dutch. Since the French speaking people considered Dutch a peasant language, beneath them, and the Dutch speaking people often didn't have the possibility of learning French, that cost quite a lot of lives. There's a famous example where an officer gave a rousing speech for his men, to tell them how they were going to act, tio lead and inspire...And ended the speech with "et pour les Flamands la même chose" ("And the same goes for the Flemish!"). He'd basically given a speech no-one had understood. Lovely :p

But hey, all Flemish children still have to take 8 years of French class, so we understand them. The Wallonian children still have to choose between English and Dutch - can't blame them for taking English, really, but it does mean they don't understand us all that good. The German-speaking mostly speak French as their second language, too.

And that whole "65% speaks the same language" isn't that big a thing - over 65% of Belgians speaks Dutch as their primary language, after all.
 
So our general consensus is everyone should have a gun and be trained on its use?
I feel like this would also fulfill the "Well regulated militia" part too, so THAT argument can be put to rest once and for all. Make them undergo a week-long series of training classes (or something like that) to learn and get it drilled into their head. Then the certified instructor (who is licensed and bonded by the state/federal government) signs off on them if they don't act like fucking idiots. Give them a card/make note of it on their Driver's License. It wouldn't be a perfect system, but at least it help weed out the most idiotic, irresponsible, and mentally ill.
 
But hey, all Flemish children still have to take 8 years of French class, so we understand them. The Wallonian children still have to choose between English and Dutch - can't blame them for taking English, really, but it does mean they don't understand us all that good. The German-speaking mostly speak French as their second language, too.
So what you're saying is...the real problem is the French. :twisted:
 
So our general consensus sans the willfully ignorant is that everyone should have a gun and be trained on its use?
Oh, I think everyone should be trained, but not everyone should have one. That way the unworthy will gain caution and respect, and but the responsible ones will be prepared.

--Patrick
 
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Ermac

Guns have literally never done anything productive in human history. All they do is kill people or destroy things. Ban them all, put any gunowner in prison longer than every drug offender.

This thread can be the lightning rod for the political mess coming out of the Massacre in Aurora this morning.
So you're saying we should throw people in prison for having a firearm they obtained legally? Banning firearms will mean only the criminals will have them then. When you get robbed by somebody with a firearm, you'll wish you had some effective means of defending yourself. "All they do is kill people"? That's like saying pencils give people bad grades and spoons make people fat.
 
"All they do is kill people"? That's like saying pencils give people bad grades and spoons make people fat.
No, not really. Without getting into the discussion at hand, that's what guns are designed to do, not a sideffect, unintended consequence or secondary use people give to them.
 
I thought we covered this already... I obviously don't support throwing every current gunowner in jail. That's the order. Ban them, allow some exchange program or something, some period of time for this whole deal to happen, THEN when its' clear they're illegal and people have had time and opportunity to get rid of their deadly weapons, then put them in jail if they persist.
 
I thought we covered this already... I obviously don't support throwing every current gunowner in jail. That's the order. Ban them, allow some exchange program or something, some period of time for this whole deal to happen, THEN when its' clear they're illegal and people have had time and opportunity to get rid of their deadly weapons, then put them in jail if they persist.

Are you high?
 
There are almost no countries on Earth (that I know of) where firearm ownership is outright banned.
That seems to be the case. Japan turns out to be one of the most restrictive, here's an excerpt from a really interesting article comparing the US with Japan in terms of gun culture:

Even the most basic framework of Japan's approach to gun ownership is almost the polar opposite of America's. U.S. gun law begins with the second amendment's affirmation of the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" and narrows it down from there. Japanese law, however, starts with the 1958 act stating that "No person shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords," later adding a few exceptions. In other words, American law is designed to enshrine access to guns, while Japan starts with the premise of forbidding it. The history of that is complicated, but it's worth noting that U.S. gun law has its roots in resistance to British gun restrictions, whereas some academic literature links the Japanese law to the national campaign to forcibly disarm the samurai, which may partially explain why the 1958 mentions firearms and swords side-by-side.

Of course, Japan and the U.S. are separated by a number of cultural and historical difference much wider than their gun policies. Kopel explains that, for whatever reason, Japanese tend to be more tolerant of the broad search and seizure police powers necessary to enforce the ban. "Japanese, both criminals and ordinary citizens, are much more willing than their American counterparts to consent to searches and to answer questions from the police," he writes. But even the police did not carry firearms themselves until, in 1946, the American occupation authority ordered them to. Now, Japanese police receive more hours of training than their American counterparts, are forbidden from carrying off-duty, and invest hours in studying martial arts in part because they "are expected to use [firearms] in only the rarest of circumstances," according to Kopel.
 
There are almost no countries on Earth (that I know of) where firearm ownership is outright banned.
Headline from June 1st, 2012 (yes, two months ago) from the BBC: Venezuela Bans Private Gun Ownership

And that's a dictatorship. I wonder why Chavez doesn't want the people to have guns?


I know we scoff at this in western democracies, and say "that's not what the 2nd amendment is for" and such, but really, when things are bad enough, IMO that's the real reason your 2nd amendment exists. Ultimately that's the ultimate "check" against government power IMO, that if things are bad enough, the people might actually rebel. Would it be effective? Probably not, but IMO that's what it's there for, but also why it's important to have on the books. I obviously don't have that right (Canadian), but I think as a philosophy it's not a bad one.
 
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Ermac

There are almost no countries on Earth (that I know of) where firearm ownership is outright banned.
This true, but countries with strict gun control usually make it incredibly difficult and/or expensive for the average person, thus effectively banning firearms from the average person.


No, not really. Without getting into the discussion at hand, that's what guns are designed to do, not a sideffect, unintended consequence or secondary use people give to them.
I'm not disputing that they primarily made to kill people, you failed to understand my point. By saying "they kill people" is like saying they have a mind of their own, they just get up and kill people, which is not true. It's like saying "spoons make people fat."
 
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Ermac

Why don't we ban cars all together or heavily restrict them? Make people wear helmets, etc. More people in the US die of car accidents than getting shot. Why don't we ban cigarettes? 53,800 people die of second hand smoke every year. Even if we banned firearms, it would not stop massacres. Timothy Mcveigh killed 76 people and he didn't fire a shot. The guy in aurora could have killed everybody with a bomb. And could have killed just as many people if not more. People say a gun makes it easier to kill people. In the middle east they kill just as many people if not more with IED's and other crude explosives. So that argument is invalid. Per capita 100,000 people, other countries that allow fairly easy ownership of firearms do not have the same number of firearms related deaths as the US. In other words, in the US, we kill each other on a much larger scale. It's not the firearms, it's the people. James Holmes is a product of twisted American society. We shoot up people overseas just like how we shoot up our own people in movie theatres.
 
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Ermac

A fork doesn't make it easier to eat ,because you can eat without a fork too. Yes, the circularity of the logic is stunning.
Maybe I didn't elaborate enough. But this idea that a gun makes mass killings easier to do is not true, because in the middle east they kill more people with bombs in 1 attack than usually 1 person with a gun does.
 
Maybe I didn't elaborate enough. But this idea that a gun makes mass killings easier to do is not true, because in the middle east they kill more people with bombs in 1 attack than usually 1 person with a gun does.

Yeah, look, if you don't see the logical flaw in that argument, I'm not even going to try, I'm in a bad mood and I'm just going to be either snarky, condescending, or insulting, which isn't my intention. But believe me, that's a fallacy if ever I saw one.
 
Yeah, look, if you don't see the logical flaw in that argument, I'm not even going to try, I'm in a bad mood and I'm just going to be either snarky, condescending, or insulting, which isn't my intention. But believe me, that's a fallacy if ever I saw one.
I'll take a crack at it for you.

Bombs take a higher amount of knowledge to make and deploy in an effective manner. Guns make it easy for almost anyone to kill another person. Thus, Ermac's statement that "guns don't make it easier to kill people" is patently false.

I can see the flaw in your logic, and I'm against further gun control!
 
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