Vote in the Gun Poll

What do you think?

hang on that poll didnt make sense!

what am i saying yes or no too, should they be legal or illegal
i meant no to legal

hahaha 'twas the joke.

ooooh im so stupid

sorry

Handguns: No.
Hunting guns: Yeah.

People who claim to need handguns for "protection": Get a butcher knife. Or condoms.

i think guns should be harder to obtain. i know about a million places people fresh from prison can go hit up about getting a gun without a license or anything and i think that's ridiculous. i think you should have to go through like, the world's most strenuous psychological testing, lots of paperwork for background, and etc. etc. make you wait and then considering let you get a gun. and you shouldn't just be able to walk down the street and pick one up so easy. there's a lot of shootings around here. i'm not a freak like Rosie about it, but i do thing some sort of gun control should be enforced.

I think its really dumb that anyone can buy a gun in America.

From what I know, the only reason they still have that stupid law is because a group of men a bajillion years ago wrote down a stupid set of human rights on a piece of paper and America refuses tom move on with the times and change those rights to suit the way the world has changed

Who knows, I am admittedly not very educated on the subject, but thats the impression I get from watching American TV haha.

The right to bear arms is the most misinterpreted law out there.
Seriously, everyone needs a pair of fuzzy big arms.

hahahaha thats hilarious!

i wonder what the statistic is for shootings in america compared with other countries who dont have that "right"

im gonna go research!!!

Sweet_Tyra wrote:hahahaha thats hilarious!

i wonder what the statistic is for shootings in america compared with other countries who dont have that "right"

im gonna go research!!!

i can assure you the statistic is much, much higher.

Ok, this is even more shocking than i thought it would be: (from http://www.ichv.org/Statistics.htm)

In 2006, there were 30,896 gun deaths in the U.S:
12,791 homicides (41% of total deaths), 16,883 suicides (55% of total deaths), 642 unintentional shootings (2% of total deaths), 360 from legal intervention (1.2% of total deaths) and 220 from undetermined intent (.8% of total deaths).

A gun in the home increases the risk of homicide of a household member by 3 times and the risk of suicide by 5 times compared to homes where no gun is present.

59% of students in grades six through twelve know where to get a gun if they want one, and two thirds of these students say they can acquire a firearm within 24 hours
Comparison of U.S. gun homicides to other industrialized countries:

In 2004 (the most recent year for which this data has been compiled), handguns murdered:

5 people in New Zealand
37 people in Sweden
56 people in Australia
184 people in Canada
19 people in Japan
73 people in the UK
11,344 people in the United States


I am just absolutely dumbfounded as to how the American government still has this ridiculous "right to bear arms" law in practice. Yeah, it was probably acceptable to have a gun a bajillion years ago when America was settled. Hey, if theyre gonna take over land they discover, they need to kill everyone who gets in their way first so they can establish a decent society. But a bajillion years later, guns just arent relevant anymore unless you are a soldier or a cop. Ugh. Stupidity, thats what it is.

Sweet_Tyra wrote:I am just absolutely dumbfounded as to how the American government still has this ridiculous "right to bear arms" law in practice.

it's mainly a bunch of hicks in the National Rifle Association. whenever anyone with ANY sense comes in and tries to take away their right to mercilessly shoot random animals just for fun, they get all "well yer just bein' perejudice! i ain't givin' away mah gun, it's in ther constiturtion!"

it's absolutely horrible. you know what's funny, the cops just pulled up outside my apartment and walked over to the upstairs unit next door and our neighbor came out and was like "who got shot?" because there are so many shootings in our area, it's just expected whenever the police are called.

I cant believe that there are people in America who are so retarded that they take the side of a bunch of deer shooting hicks over the lives of over 11,000 of their own citizens

That is absolutely disgusting to me.

And that must be frightening living in an area like that where it is just normal for there to be a shooting. I live in the centre of the city and that was one thing I was wary of, the weirdos and the violence, but I have never heard a gunshot , it would be such a shock if i did hear one. And if i DID hear one, im sure that if there was going to be another one, it wouldnt happen for a while.

drive bys~
scariest when they happen in the house in front of yours.

I dont think we should get rid of guns entirely, i just believe they should be harder to get. You dont know how many times i hear on the news "today there was a shooting in -blank-brooklyn". like where the fuck do they get these guns?

Guns should only be used for hunting(food not sport) and self defense. I would think people would feel a whole lot safer if they had a gun in the house,but sadly if we were allowed to do that then people would take advantage and start walking around with them.

i say fencing should come back.

Sweet_Tyra wrote:I cant believe that there are people in America who are so retarded that they take the side of a bunch of deer shooting hicks over the lives of over 11,000 of their own citizens

That is absolutely disgusting to me.

And that must be frightening living in an area like that where it is just normal for there to be a shooting. I live in the centre of the city and that was one thing I was wary of, the weirdos and the violence, but I have never heard a gunshot , it would be such a shock if i did hear one. And if i DID hear one, im sure that if there was going to be another one, it wouldnt happen for a while.

i agree completely, but in all honesty, it's really not frightening when you grow up around it. it's just kind of like "oh, there was a shooting yesterday..." and it's sad that a lot of areas are so laid-back about it. it's like no one really cares and if anyone does, people call them "extreme" or make them out to be prejudice people who want to take away people's rights.

Sweet_Tyra wrote: a group of men a bajillion years ago wrote down a stupid set of human rights on a piece of paper.

it was like 200 years ago.
back when i was a baby.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

Jilpen wrote:Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

i'm not quite sure standing in front of someone and yelling "BANG" is going to kill anyone.
without a gun, someone stands a much better chance of living.

im taking it you are pro-guns jil?

642 unintentional shootings, nuff said?

the point is that if they werent so readily available people wouldnt have the opportunity to use them so casually and so readily

you dont exactly hear of any unintentional rapes

Not really, I just wanted to say that quote. I hate guns.,

good

Mmmmkay, hate to break up the Jilpen-jumping/Anti-Gun rap, but...

The ol' "Guns don't kill people/People kill people" adage is TRUE, and though I am VERY VERY anti-gun I have to say, a killer is a killer is a killer, access to guns is irrelevant.
Yes, the statistics are shocking, but what about death by other means? Also, take population into account - Canada is gun-free and has the second-highest number on that list but we're wayyyy less populated than the US. So you have to ask - is it an access thing, or a culture thing? And what about stabbings or other homicides? If you account for population, deaths by stabbing in Canada and the US are very close.
If I were to move to the US tomorrow, I would not go gun-crazy, and if a gun-toting killer were to move to Canada tomorrow he would not reform and he would likely still find a way to get off on killing.
As jilpen and I discussed, most of the people who kill with a gun did not acquire it legally, and really, do you think someone who has it in their mind to KILL someone is considering "Hmmm, is this legal?" I mean, I've had access to a rifle and ammo pretty much all my life and have known damn well how to use one, I was taught what a kill-shot was before my tenth birthday. Does this mean I will use it on another human being? No, because I have never gotten the urge to kill and likely never will.