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Guns don't kill people - People kill people... with guns Got into one of those message board conversations I find so distasteful a while back. Talking to some Americans about gun control. My point was a simple one - How can a reasonable, intelligent society condone the mass availability of murder weapons? Lots of arguing, a fair amount of name calling (a couple likened New Zealand to Nazi Germany when I told them that we didn't allow mentally ill people to buy assault rifles over the counter) and some irritating patriotism later... Guns don't kill people. Yes, they do. Next question. Banning guns will not stop murder - People will kill one another, even without guns. Yes, but guns make it easier. This argument is "They're gonna do it regardless, so we may as well make it as easy as possible for them". It's entirely conceivable that I wasn't paying attention in class that year, but I thought that one of the tenants of a civilised society (you know, like America, only civilised) was to make it as hard as humanly possible for criminals to kill us. One of the better ways I can think of to accomplish this would be to take their murder weapons off them. Which leads to... When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. But they won't have as many. We have far tougher gun restrictions than some countries, so we have a lot less guns floating around the place. We've had two major gun massacres in the last ten years - how many happened in the states in the last few months? People can make their own guns. - Apparently it's easy if you've got the right equipment. Yep - Of course, on a piece of that crap modern art in the University Quad, there are detailed instructions on how to build a home-made fertiliser bomb - does this mean we should legalise the sort of bomb that blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma for personal use? Also, while I could possibly make a gun, it'd take me a couple of weeks to buy the machinery, teach myself how to use it, and get the appropriate materials. By which time hopefully my flatmates might have noticed me carrying pieces of home made rifle into my room, and muttering about killing them and gaining my revenge because Marilyn Manson told me to hate jocks. If I can buy a gun over the counter, the first thing my flatmates know about it is when I burst into the sitting room screaming "I'm going to make my penis bigger, you gay black sluts!!" It's a freedom issue. You should have the freedom to kill someone at your discretion? Guns are for protection. Leaving aside whether or not it's right to murder an assailant, if there are a couple of hundred handguns in a country with a population of 4-odd million, you won't need as much protection as if you're walking down the street in a country where a ten year old white boy can present an id that says he's a 65 year old Korean woman and be given a military issue semi automatic. Tighter restrictions mean less guns. This means you need less protection, which means you need fewer guns. You need guns to protect yourself if the government takes away your civil liberties. This was something of a circular argument, as the rednecks I spoke to mostly defined the civil liberties they were worried about losing as their right to own guns. However, despite that, there is an almost foolproof defense against the government taking away all of your rights. I'll say it slowly, for the benefit of anyone who uses the argument - Don't... vote... for... the ...Fascist...party. I don't know about anyone else, but if a party promises me that they'll return New Zealand to it's glory days by rounding up and zykloning all the Jews, I'm probably not going to vote for them. The genie won't go back in it's bottle. No - That's why, sadly, we need things like the armed offenders squad - specially trained police officers who's job it is to take guns off lunatics. Guns won't go away, so they must be controlled. I personally fully support the idea that Rowan Atkinson once suggested (of course he meant it as a joke, I'm less kidding) - If you want a gun, you must first fill out a comprehensive questionnaire - The first question on which will be "Do you want to own a gun?" If the answer is yes, then you are clearly unsuitable, and should under no circumstances ever be given one. --Apathy Jack |
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