Crazed Rabbit said:
Basically anyone who lives in a city knows where the shady parts are. A few discrete inquiries will probably get whatever illegal thing you desire.
And if you're lucky, they won't just take your money and dump your corpse somewhere
A few facts:
2 million + per year use their guns to defend themselves. Think about it. That's a lot, and by banning guns, you would make every one of those people victims - 2 million plus crime victims.
Depends. Are they defending themselves from criminals, or from other idiots using guns to defend themselves?
Around 15,000 people are killed by others per year using guns. On the threat scale, it's rather low.
15000 people per year is rather low?
Gun ownership is the last defense against a tyrannical government. Governments killed tens of millions last century, so it's foolish to give the government complete control over your life.
No, no it isn't. The English revolution happened before guns were invented. The French never needed guns to overthrow their government. Nobody pointed a gun at the Soviet Union and made them re-unify Germany. Nobody pointed a gun at Gorbachev and made him disband the Soviet Union.
Hell, you're kidding yourself if you think guns are sufficient to protect yourself from the government. Or haven't you noticed they happen to have all the tanks, airplanes and artillery?
People across the nation taking up arms - even semi autos - would not be possible to be put down. It's also a rather big deterrent effect.
Actually, they've been put down a number of times in many different countries. Moot point in the US anyway, they can always deploy Ebola or Anthrax weapons (more to the point, deploy them then promise the antidote to any who surrender).
And? I killed him to protect my property. If he didn't want to take the chance of being killed, then he shouldn't have placed himself in that situation.
That's the problem though. You killed him to protect your property. You weren't shooting to get rid of him, to stop him attacking you or to make him run, you shot with the stated purpose of killing.
Furthermore, how do you know he was a threat to your property? You come downstairs in the middle of the night and shoot some guy you find wandering around your house. Could turn out you left the door unlocked and a neighbour called round to check you were okay. Could be a police officer responding to reports of someone wandering the premises with a weapon, could be anything. Too late to find out when you've spread his brains across the wall.
And then there's protecting your property. If someone puts a brick through my window, can I then shoot him to 'protect my property'. Hey, maybe he looked at my car in an envious manner, best shoot him now before he comes back and nicks it
This seems to be rational, I personaly think if people would do this kinda thing when faced with this situation there would be less casualtys.
It is, the problem is few people confronting an intruder in their home are in a rational mindset when they do so.
They are the guidelines because they offer you the best chance of survival
Hear hear. In Narc's case it might be different, but consider this. Your wallet might have what, $50 or so in there. Yeah, it's a ***** if you use it, but work out how much it would cost for a lawyer if you end up needing to defend the decision in court. Which would you rather pay?
There is nothing you can do with a .357 that you can't do with a .25, defensively
The other problem of course is that if he doesn't run when you pull the gun, you can bet either his mate's behind you with a gun pointed at your head, or this guy knows how to deal with someone holding a gun. The other problem the self defence argument has - criminals using guns are a lot more experienced and skilled than those they try and rob.
Property is also a fundamental human right, at least according to the Enlightenment philosophers who formed the philosophical basis for modern democracies. According to them, you absolutely have the right to protect your property if the government fails to do so.
There's a distinct difference between protecting something and killing someone. Hell, my insurance protects my property just fine without killing anyone (at least, I don't think my insurance company kills anyone, but you can never tell these days). To protect my property, I merely have to prevent someone from damaging it. No part of that necessitates I waste the guy.
