the right to bear arms.......

[Coolhand Texas]

Yes I do own a gun. After all I said it would be hilarious if I actually didnt ownn a gun

By the way their have been 5 cases around my college involving gun related crimes in 1 semester

[beltic caldy]

Thank you : )

And my second question? Have you ever had a burglary/home invasion? How many of your close friends have? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to entrap.....?

[Coolhand Texas]

Thank you : )

And my second question? Have you ever had a burglary/home invasion? How many of your close friends have? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to entrap.....?

I have never had any, but my neighboor has. A guy walked right in the door and there was nothing she could do.

[beltic caldy]

Sounds like it was a bad experience for your neighbour and I hope she got through it safely....I can't help wonder if she was armed?

I don't know.....maybe there's a mixing of reality with mythology (Hollywood)......

I have to say it makes me queasy when, as a rebuttal, I hear the argument about constitutional rights, which then warps/morphs into some patriotism argument - and it's a very common, or seems to be a very common counter-argument. If patriotism is a love/honor of your country and it's inhabitants, then surely it's more patriotic to want to see as many of those inhabitants safely reach old age?

Get yourself membership to a paint-ball club man, and spread the word to all and sundry - replace all real guns with paintball guns and let's re-examine the stats afterwards, in safety. In the massively unlikely event you need to defend your home, a few close-range paint-balls on target will likely be every bit as effective as a 9mm glock.

[jayl0ve]

A lot of people (A LOT) defend our gun laws on the basis that they're hunters.

Quite frankly I find hunting to be a really silly thing to do nowadays, but anyways that's what a lot of people will tell you.

@ coke: no offense man but that is weak. It's not a question of what's the 'greater crime' in the situation you mention. This person is in your house and you have no idea what he's going to do, there are a lot of really really fukkin crazy, depraved people out there, especially here in the US....maybe this is just an American thing but if you come in my house in the middle of the night, you are fair game and you are getting F***KED UP and probably killed. I'm talking full on, stab you 50 times and use your head as a soccer ball type thing. Maybe we just differ on our view of the sanctity of human life, but I am killing anybody who breaks into my house in the middle of the night.

Guns don't kill people.

I do!

[coke4]

@ coke: no offense man but that is weak. It's not a question of what's the 'greater crime' in the situation you mention. This person is in your house and you have no idea what he's going to do, there are a lot of really really fukkin crazy, depraved people out there, especially here in the US....maybe this is just an American thing but if you come in my house in the middle of the night, you are fair game and you are getting F***KED UP and probably killed. I'm talking full on, stab you 50 times and use your head as a soccer ball type thing. Maybe we just differ on our view of the sanctity of human life, but I am killing anybody who breaks into my house in the middle of the night.

Guns don't kill people.

I do!

Seriously, killing someone for breaking an entry?
I suppose its just a different outlook between Europeans and Americans

[jayl0ve]

Well I don't think it would be an easy, fun thing to do.

Basically it's like Coolhand said. I'd tell them to get the F out of my house right now, and if they don't, well then they're basically asking to be stabbed/shot/mauled by a dog/whatever. It's more out of the fear of what this person is going to do to you than some kind of bloodlust I/we Americans have

We live in different societies. No offense but you guys don't know what it's like to live in America in a big city (just like I don't know what it's like living in a small town in Europe).

[jayl0ve]

I think Americans take affronts to their property much more personally than Europeans.

[coke4]

I think Americans take affronts to their property much more personally than Europeans.

Yes, if someone was in my house I would just stay in bed and keep out of their way. That way we both win. I know a girl who was awake when robbers were in her room, that must have been pretty freaky.

[VillaJ100]

The uk, and probably europe as a whole just doesnt have the cultural and constitutional right of firearms the USA has. We can probably never really understand it, as for hundreds of years its been every citizens right to own a firearm if they so wish. Its small minded of us to say that they shouldn't have it, thier country's laws deem it applicable, so we should respect it.

Armed defence in the UK opens a whole ugly can of worms, see cases like tony martin etc.

And as what was mentioned earlier, my friend is a bodybuilder, and is bloody huge. He is probably about the same size and build of david haye, and the other day his house was broken into. he has a baseball bat in his bedroom and he said he walked downstairs with it, nervous as hell and turned on the light, and saw 3 teenagers in the process of stealing his stuff. Now bear in mind he is a massive guy. he said he was petrified and just pretended he was insane, and said "Oh you're here, the voices told me you would be, they said today, they said you would come!" etc, and proceeded to smash the hell out of his living room with this baseball bat The kids ran off thinking they were dealing with a complete psychopath lol. They have all been caught now luckily

[jayl0ve]

That's good the guys got caught, only it kinda seems like he did their 'work' for them

Just think about it for one second and you'll realize there's much crazier laws that exist in other countries.

Ever wanted to get caned within an inch of your life?? Spit out some gun in Singapore.

Ever wanted to get hung from a cherry picker by your neck?? In public? Just tell somebody you're a homosexual in Iran! Fun!

[AUSSIE_FABS]

Just because there are worse laws doesn't make it any better, just saying. That's like just going up to someone punching them in face then telling them that at least you didn't kick in balls.

I find the whole guns to defend stuff counter intuitive. Instead of taking guns away, lets give people more guns.

The hunting thing is so bs excuse. In some cases yes I can see it but most of the time it for "sport", well done you killed an animal with a gun.

Also another reason was to give the ability for civillians to aid in any 'invasions' and form militias, also it was an idea to spread the 'power' so the populace could rise against gov but again another irrelevant thing in this day and age does any one believe that they would be able to overthrow gov'n with a couple of guns lol.

[Coolhand Texas]

Just because there are worse laws doesn't make it any better, just saying. That's like just going up to someone punching them in face then telling them that at least you didn't kick in balls.

I find the whole guns to defend stuff counter intuitive. Instead of taking guns away, lets give people more guns.

The hunting thing is so bs excuse. In some cases yes I can see it but most of the time it for "sport", well done you killed an animal with a gun.

Also another reason was to give the ability for civillians to aid in any 'invasions' and form militias, also it was an idea to spread the 'power' so the populace could rise against gov but again another irrelevant thing in this day and age does any one believe that they would be able to overthrow gov'n with a couple of guns lol.

care to explain more on how its counter intuitive?

[TomBs]

I would tell the intruder to leave or I'll shoot. He doesn't leave, I shoot. (you described a person stealing for his family, Im pretty sure they would leave after I said that, it's the more serious criminals who don't leave).

Would you really? At that moment you cannot know what grade of criminal it is. Good luck walking into a couple of armed robbers who shoot you before you've even finished telling them to leave.. You might get 1 or 2, but end up dead yourself. I wouldn't really do that, but that indeed might be a difference between Europe/USA.

I'd prefer letting the cops go after them and have them taken down in court. In case they don't get caught there's still insurance to get money for my stuff back. Surely that doesn't totally count for the items with a high emotional value, but they would be stored somewhere really safe anyway. Might be a difference in trust in law and insurance companies in Europe/USA as well?

Nevertheless like Villa said I do respect it, but just can't agree with it.

[Moralspain]

Nevertheless like Villa said I do respect it, but just can't agree with it.

+1