Considering that USA have more deaths by the deliberate use of firearms than all 21 affiliated countries in Europe, Canada and Australia...approximately 500,000,000 (five hundred million) people, do you not think that it is about time that the US Constitution was amended to outlaw the purchase and use of firearms and restrict their sale to private individuals only for the purpose of hunting and only allowing these to be of the shotgun or rifle variety?

Long question I know and perhaps a bit deep...but most of you will at some time or other encounter a firearm incident if you live in the Continental US and it is even more likely if you live in certain urban areas or states such as Texas, Florida, California or New York. Perhaps this is due to State in addtion to Federal legislation and also perhaps an explosive mix of different social & ethnic backgrounds.

Please don't just post yes or no as you must have a reason to give an answer


Peace Out

Restricting guns wont do sqat. Here in NYC its illegal for civilians to carry a conveal firearm. Yet lots of guns are smuggled in. In other countries I know they have banned and restrict guns completely thinking it will stop crimes. Yet crimes involving firearms have steadly increased instead of decreasing.

shouldn't this be in debates?

I see this as becoming a debate... if any mod feels I have misplaced it, feel free to move it =]

thx for moving it...i hadn't seen debates as a topic.


Peace Out

restricting the right to bear arms takes guns away from the responsible and lets criminals who steal guns a free ticket because if they rob someone, the person being robbed can't fire back.

i'll say it again, It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

if every citizen were issued an assult rifle which they carried, there would be no crime, save murders.

hey, you're stopping rape, robbery, muggings, etc.

it's great, isn't it?

what i think...

I don't think you can make that conclusion, it is not that easy.

Here is the key point: Criminals do not obey laws. What would laws actually do to stop criminals? On the other side 1,000 innocent people a year die from gun accidents, i'm still torn between both sides. I don't need a gun, will never need a gun, and i certainly wouldn't feel safer owning a gun. I don't think i trust most civilians having guns on them, it is just too easy to pull a trigger on someone.

well, yea, but not many people will rape a 17 year old girl at 3 in the morning when she has an AK-47.

guns give an advantage to whichever side has one. if one side doesn't have a gun, they're disadvantaged. if both sides have a gun (and know how to use it), then they're about equal, as they're both disadvantaged.

so how does it save lives by taking guns away from law-abiding citizens, while the criminals stil lhave guns?

you're right. the laws won't stop criminals.

In most rape cases a gun is not even involved. Say i had a gun in my purse. A guy comes sneaking up behind me, he is much stronger and rips my purse with my gun away from me. Now he has two guns, and if he didn't have a gun to begin with, he does now.


I wouldn't feel any safer walking with a gun, even if i know how to use it. It can always turn into someone elses weapon against you, it is never an equal battle dealing with guns.

that's true. even if they make a law restricting us from owning guns, people will still find ways to get them. anyway, i think you need a license to own one and it has to be renewed every few somethings, or maybe those are just some certain guns.

why a gun? anyone can fire a gun. why not something like a rope dart or a dagger? a pocketknife is pretty inefficient and most people don't know how to use daggers (or rope darts) properly.

sorry, that was off-topic.

oh and the freedom to own a gun doesn't give you freedom to kill.

I'm not sure if any of you have been on both ends of the barrell but let me just give a real life account.

My best friend blew his own brains out. My uncle was caught in the crossfire and was killed at 25. And I have been held up at gunpoint on more than one occasion. My family opposes guns... to an extent. I oppose guns... to an extent. Afew weeks ago, a few guys were on my property trying to steal my car, but a 20gauge shotgun spoke otherwise. My little cousin was almost raped, but her .45 let out a cry for help right in the guy's spine.

Thank God for guns.

I agree with you.

Did you know that most of the killings that are done with guns are done with illegal guns? It doesn't matter if the person has a license or if guns are legal or not. The black market will always be alive no matter what.

i definitely agree with you about the black market thing...

What about the fact that with less legally owned guns, with a change of legislation, there would be a substantially reduced opportunity to purchase illegal guns; obviously they will never be eradicated as they are available even here in the UK...just that their indiscriminate use is severely limited.

We all know the well-used phrase 'guns don't kill people, people kill people'. With a change of culture, it may take some time but eventually through a change in attitude through legislation and via education, any society can be altered, even one as vast as the USA.

Private gun use on so many levels and in so many ways is just wrong and definitely creates an aggressive culture. The fact that with very limited checks as a foreign citizen owning property and having a bank account in the USA, I could have recently purchased a Mach10 which fires 30 rounds/second. If I had so desired I could have purchased that gun and immediately gone on a killing spree, without ever having held a gun before. Is this right?

If it was that easy for me, how much easier is it for US citizens to buy a revolver or semi-automatic if that's their choice. And what training do they have to receive (unlike Military/Police) and what kind of mental analysis do they have to receive prior to a licence being issued?

You all know the answer to that.


Peace Out

guns don't kill people, bullets do. we need bullet control.

yea, that's corny.

the right to bear arms was not put as the second ammendment becuase they needed guns for hunting. rather, it was in response to the british policies regarding the colonists and guns.

the right to bear arms comes right after freedoms of speech, religion, press and petition. why? because the right to bear arms was important to the founding fathers.

now look at the bill or rights.

the real text.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed

now, this real text makes it obvious the purpose of the right to bear arms was to protect the state.

not the individual, but the state.

however, if you will look, it says "... necessary to the security of a free state..."

therefore, the right to bear arms is to ensure freedom. it is to ensure the army cannot take control of the country. (which happened a lot in europe). it was to ensure that citizens, once they'd expressed thier opinions on the government, published them, and put them in a petition, that the citizens would have the power to put the bullet behind thier words.

the right to bear arms is not about defense of self.
it is not about hunting.

it is about ensuring a free state

and that is still relevant today.

My response to opposers is for you to refer to my previous response.

Guns can be a savior. But, can also cause hate and dispare

bumping this, as I will be bringing this topic up in my Issues in American Society class.

I can't believe there aren't many people here that support gun control.

GUNS DO NOT KILL PEOPLE.

GUNS DO NOT CAUSE HATE.

it's the retards holding them.

More guns = less crime. The reason the US has more crime than other countries is because we have more DIVERSITY (not just racial, but in all ways). Diversity trades social conformity in exchange for individual freedom, so a little crime is a necessary side effect. The highest crime rates in the US are in the South, and really the South is the most diverse part of the country, whereas crime is nearly nonexistent in northern New England, where everyone is about the same.

Although I do support repealing the second amendment, on the grounds of States' Rights. States should be allowed to determine their own gun control policy, because the States that have loose gun control laws are doing just fine, whereas, if a state wants to commit suicide by having tough gun laws, that's their issue. The evidence clearly supports that higher gun ownership creates less crime in similar areas (Chicago vs. New York, Maine/Vermont/New Hampshire vs. Wisconsin/Minnesota, Texas vs. Louisiana, etc.) A criminal isn't going to attack a victim he thinks might be armed. That's simple incentives--just like a criminal isn't going to commit a crime where there's a lot of police becaue he has a higher chance of being punished, it's the same for committing a crime where there's a high rate of gun ownership.

Once again, to take the example of Philadelphia and nearby Wilmington. It is easier to get a gun in Pennsylvania than Delaware, so many Philadelphia drug dealers found it hard to operate in PA, and had to relocate their bases to Delaware, while going into Philadelphia by day. This caused Philadelphia's crime problem to spill over into Delaware which basically made Wilmington the most dangerous mid-sized city in the country--but you don't hear about Boston's crime problem spilling over into New Hampshire, do you? A Boston drug dealer who wants to run his operation in Nashua would be driven out by the locals.

It's a TERRIBLE idea to amend the Constitution to repeal private ownership of guns. Vermont has almost NO crime yet allows anyone above the age of 15 to buy a gun without background checks (even felons) and carry it concealed, so it's silly to force the same gun laws there that you would have in New York City. Only something like one in five hundred guns are being used irresponsibly; most guns are used for self-defense or lawful entertainment--so a ban on guns is like saying, "one in five hundred Muslims is a terrorist... so let's nuke the Middle East and kill all of them."

Also, as for the militia wording, the United States Code and the Militia Act define the "unorganized militia" as all adult male individuals, so the right to gun ownership in the Constitution now does extend to all of them.

A knife can kill too. Fists can kill. Anything can kill. The guns don't kill, the people do. Perhaps a background check/childhood/family life check type thing would help before a person is allowed to purchase guns. Also, asking for the use of the gun would help too. I really don't think anyone needs an AK 47 to shoot a deer with..

You might need an AK47 to protect yourself from the government.

Yes, I believe we have the right to bear arms. We should be able to half self defense but we shouldn't be allowed to walk around with guns

"The Second Amendment, as passed by the Congress and ratified by the States, reads:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. "



Just about everyone never reads that part of the amendment- they get excited once they hear about right to bear arms