Why Americans Love Their Guns

[DangerGirl]

With apologies to Mynock, I have to disagree with the premise of this thread's title, at least as far as I'm concerned. As I said in the other thread, we have several guns, but for me they're just tools allow me to do certain things I enjoy. I don't love them any more than I love, say, my car, our plane, my pointe shoes, my computer, or any other inanimate object. Okay, so maybe I love the plane a little. However, I do love the activities that each of these things allow me to engage in. When it comes to guns, I enjoy going to the range and spending an afternoon blowing through several boxes of ammo. Not only is it a fun, relaxing, and competitive activity, but it also hones my skills, which makes me both better able to defend myself and others if need be, as well as safer to myself and to others. After all, the fewer shots required to get the job done, the fewer shots there are to go astray.

Purple Monkey, with regard to the 30-round pistol magazines like the one used in Arizona, they really don't offer any advantage to a skilled shooter. I can swap a full mag for an spent one in about two seconds, and pick up again like I never stopped shooting. Granted, the 30-round mags may make it easier for an amateur to keep shooting, but it also makes the gun a lot more unwieldy and difficult to conceal and reload. I can see where they would be handy for target shooting, though, because having to reload empty magazines at the range is kind of a pain in the ass, and it might be nice to have some high-capacity magazines pre-loaded so you don't have to stop. However, since I train the way I fight, a 30-round magazine is worthless to me because a) I count my rounds as I shoot and I have no desire to keep track of more than 12-15 shots, and b) I use the Weaver Ready Stance, and there's no way I could do that with an extra six inches poking out of the bottom of the grip.

Aiko, I've been to Austria, and I agree that it is pretty much what you say it is. It's a beautiful country, and I always felt safe there. However, I think that's due more to the fundimental cultural differences between Austria and the US than to Austria's more stringent gun laws. I'm pretty sure that, if ownership of handguns were to be allowed by law in Austria, the crime rate would stay about the same, because Austrians just aren't that disposed to committing violent crimes. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but I know it doesn't happen on nearly the same level as it does in the States. However, the fact that Austria sits largely in the middle of several prosperous, politically stable, and culturally similar countries, has the land mass of a mid-sized American state and a population smaller than some of the largest American counties, and has a vastly different culture and history makes comparing it to the US a futile endeavor.

[Aiko]

So, with the above scenario that is my reality on a daily basis, fault me for defending myself if you will.

I don't. It's your right and given your circumstances, it is understandable why you would want to arm yourself.

This is a choice of necessity brought about by the failure of the Federal government to secure the border and the willingness of those who have entered the country illegally to do whatever they feel like doing to further their cause....whatever it may be.

It is a choice and it's yours to make, and that's fine with me. I might choose differently, even so that does not mean I do not respect your decision to get a gun. BUT, blaming the government's failure for making you arm yourself seems like the first step towards denying responsibility. It is your decision, your gun, your responsibility. So do your best to make sure your gun never gets into the wrong hands and that you never have reason to regret pulling its trigger.

Obviously my reality looks very different from yours. I wish you (and everyone else on this planet) had as little reason to arm yourself as I do. It would be foolish to assume that this could be achieved simply by outlawing guns, but I hope that we can at least agree that it is a goal worth pursuing.

[Aiko]

Aiko, I've been to Austria, and I agree that it is pretty much what you say it is. It's a beautiful country, and I always felt safe there. However, I think that's due more to the fundimental cultural differences between Austria and the US than to Austria's more stringent gun laws. I'm pretty sure that, if ownership of handguns were to be allowed by law in Austria, the crime rate would stay about the same, because Austrians just aren't that disposed to committing violent crimes. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but I know it doesn't happen on nearly the same level as it does in the States. However, the fact that Austria sits largely in the middle of several prosperous, politically stable, and culturally similar countries, has the land mass of a mid-sized American state and a population smaller than some of the largest American counties, and has a vastly different culture and history makes comparing it to the US a futile endeavor.

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it here. I also agree that it's not just the gun laws (btw. our law does not prohibit guns in general, only certain types like fully-automatic ones. Others may require a license or have other restrictions on them depending on which class they belong to). The generally low poverty rate and very low number of illegal immigrants help keeping our crime rate low. Still, I think that the gun laws do their part as well. The simple fact that there are fewer guns in circulation means that you are more likely to draw attention to yourself if you have one and that it's harder to get and keep one illegally.

[Mynock]

Pretty clearly, the issue of guns is a complicated one. A VERY complicated one. Its also a very emotional one and that is part of the problem. It seems to me that what we need is more willingness to actually look at solving the real problems that are pretty clearly there.

I'm open to any suggestion that will actually work.
The problem is all the solutions our lawmakers have presented so far don't. The assault weapons ban that was enacted from 1994-2004 didn't work. Banning them doesn't work. Restricting magazines doesn't work (you can reload a Glock in roughly 3 seconds, at most, that would've shaved 5 seconds off the shooters firing time in the Giffords incident). The thumbprint ID thing you mentioned does work, but it adds thousands of dollars to the cost of a firearm and can't be retro-fitted to older models. In my opinion that's a ridiculous burden to place on people who want to own a gun just on the thousand to one chance said 5 year old is going to get a hold of it.
And yes, that chance is very small. Again, despite what you see on TV, gun violence is not a huge problem in this country.
The last year I have figures for is 2007. Approximately 16,000 people died that year from some type of gun related incident. This isn't just violent murders, mind you, but any incident involving a firearm in which someone died. You've got suicides, stupidity (AKA 'accidents') and other random things in there too.
In that year, depending on wheather you believe the ATF or the NRA, anywhere from 90,000,000 to 150,000,000 people owned firearms.
Do the math. Even if you cut out the details and assume all 16,000 of those people were shot by a criminal, and you assume that the ATF figure was closer to correct, AND you assume that each one of those deaths can be attributed to someone who lawfully owned a firearm, that means for every 1 person that shot somebody, you've got about 10,000 people who didn't. To suggest banning something outright or placing complicated regulations on it because one in ten thousand people misuse it is ridiculous, imho.
The tool is not the problem. The people using it are.

[schlamm]

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[Mynock]

With apologies to Mynock, I have to disagree with the premise of this thread's title, at least as far as I'm concerned. As I said in the other thread, we have several guns, but for me they're just tools allow me to do certain things I enjoy.

No apolgies necessary. The point I was trying to get across was that people in this country use fireams for variety of reasons, and the vast majority of those reasons have nothing to do with violence. For you it's simply a tool, for me it's hobby.

[tempman]

For every asshole shooting up a school, there's millions of us out in the woods Deer hunting in the fall. For every idiot robbing a convience store there's millions of us just hanging out at the range with our friends having a good time punching holes in paper targets (and exploding the occasional water melon). For every dirtbag that otherwise uses a gun to do their fellow human beings evil, there's millions of us that don't.

Using this formula-

In 2004 there were ~8,000 gun related homicides.
That means there were ~8,000,000,000 people hunting deer? Firstly that's a lot of dead deer, secondly that 8,000 figure was the lowest its been for years (but sadly just the latest I could find at such short notice).

The fact is guns are only useful for one thing - killing. They're not tools like knives, they're weapons designed to stop something from living. Be that the police using them to stop criminals, hunters using them to kill animals. They're either used for killing or perfecting your skills to be able to kill.

Personally I find that the US has a very funny attitude towards life and death. Homicide figures are very high over there, they still have the death penalty, there's a general lack of empathy surrounding the ending of ones life. Which I find very odd considering the puritan state that modern America was founded on.

[Aiko]

To suggest banning something outright or placing complicated regulations on it because one in ten thousand people misuse it is ridiculous, imho.

Is it really? If stricter gun laws could lower the number of violent deaths by 100 (a purely arbitrary number) in the US each year, would you be willing to part with your AR and endure a few inconveniences those laws would impose on you as a gun-owner?

[schlamm]

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[Mynock]

In 2004 there were ~8,000 gun related homicides.
That means there were ~8,000,000,000 people hunting deer? Firstly that's a lot of dead deer, secondly that 8,000 figure was the lowest its been for years (but sadly just the latest I could find at such short notice).

Actually, I said millions, not 1 million times the number of gun related deaths, but actually (these are figures for 2006 but close enough imho):
http://www.fws.gov/hunting/huntstat.html

To suggest banning something outright or placing complicated regulations on it because one in ten thousand people misuse it is ridiculous, imho.

Is it really? If stricter gun laws could lower the number of violent deaths by 100 (a purely arbitrary number) in the US each year, would you be willing to part with your AR and endure a few inconveniences those laws would impose on you as a gun-owner?

First off, you do realize my AR is semi-automatic right? It's not a machine gun. I'm just pointing this out because you said in an earlier post that you were against people owning fully automatic weapons. Full auto is legal here, but it is very tightly regulated by the ATF.
Second, if you could guarantee me with 100% surety that whatever regulation you have in mind would prevent someone from getting killed, yes, I'd happily deal with the inconvience. The problem is you can't. Me giving up my rights is not going to stop the hood rats up in Philadelphia from buying stolen or illegally imported guns out of some guys trunk. Criminals, by definition, do not obey the law.