Do you think it is normal having firearms?

[Grey Acumen]

tombi123 said:
Your society must be fucked up if you can justify having a gun to protect yourself.

What is safer, A) A country (state, community) where everyone has a gun, or B) a country (state,community) where no one is allowed a gun?

The answer is obvious to me. B. There will be people who have guns illegally but they would be a very small minority. I certainly feel safer living in a country where guns are banned, then I would living in a country where guns are allowed.

I live in England by the way. And guns are banned.

So you tell me, where can a criminal do more damage, A) A country (state, community) where everyone has a gun and can shoot his ass if he tries to use his own gun in an illegal manner, or B) a country (state,community) where no one is allowed a gun, and he never has to worry about getting shot himself at all?

Seems the answer to me is A. The only one that B seems to make things safer for are the criminals, and forgive me, but my sympathy is a little slim in that territory. 

  

you know what, I think I'm seeing a failure of understanding each other's perspectives here. Now I recognize how much of an oddity it is for gun ownership to be legal and widespread. It's never been a "right" for you people, it's not a part of the foundation of your country. To you, the government "lets" you possess firearms at its discretion. Growing up in that type of situation, of course you would feel threatened by people clamoring to be able to own guns. After all, that's not normal, what do they want them for? What are they planning?

Unlike other countries, it is the in the very founding rules of the USA that we have the right to bear arms and use them to protect ourselves with them. That is one of the principle foundations of our freedom, it may be buried deep underground so that you don't even realize that it's holding up everything that has been built on top of it, but it's still there.
To us, being able to own and carry firearms is much the same as being able to have a safety harness on a roller coaster. People carry guns because it is their right, not only because they are afraid or intend to shoot anyone. this is simply how it is.

To carry that roller coaster analogy further, we've had a lot of years early on where we had our safety harnesses, and we needed them, cause we were on a crazy rollercoaster that nearly derailed on numerous occasions and could have thrown us out of the cart at a moments notice. It may have been scary, but that's just part of what life is about.
Right now, we're at a pretty easy stretch of track. People are beginning to complain that the harness is unnecessary. Right now, it may even seem like that. The ride actually has gotten so easy that some people remove the harness completely so that they can relax a bit better. On top of that, the tracks are so steady that we now have some guy who's coming up along side the tracks to remove harnesses from everybody's cars, for their convenience, of course.
Now, maybe you'd be okay with that, but personally, I don't always know exactly who's building these tracks, and I can't see far enough down that I can be certain that there aren't any crazy loop de loops down on the horizon. Now, if we do suddenly hit a bunch of loop de loops, maybe in the middle of the night while we're asleep, are we going to have enough time to get those harnesses back? Where did the guy that took them even go? Are we even completely certain he was working for the same place that built the tracks? What if he died and won't get the harnesses back at all, or what if he never intended to give them back to begin with?
Thank you, but I'll keep my safety harness. It's not that I'm afraid of falling out right now, but that harness is still supposed to be there, and so when someone comes along telling me to remove it, I'm going to object. I'll also do the best I can to convince the people around me to keep their harness on as well.
Maybe we'll never hit another point on the tracks that we need the harnesses for, but doesn't that seem a little naive? We obviously had tracks rough enough that we needed them for before, so no one can guarantee that the issue won't come up again. But on that rare, off chance that we do hit a rough run of tracks, do you really want to be the only one without the safety harness? Do you want to be the only one with restrictions on how quickly you can get that harness, or expect to be told that you don't qualify to get your harness?

It's there for a reason. Rare or not, uncomfortable or not, it's still there for a reason.