| killerzX said: there are age restrictions on owning firearms, there are age restrictions for carrying firearms. there are age restrictions on buying ammunition. there are training requirements for carrying a firearm in public. You need nothing more than enogh money to buy a car. you dont need a license, a permit, insurance, nothing, no test to pass. just walk in a buy it. and do you realize how ridiculous pointing out that cars primary purpose isnt to kill but to drive. as that just proves how inneffective guns are at killing, because apparrently their primary purpose is to kill, yet they kill 1/4 of the amount of people as cars do, yet cars arent even designed to kill. and there are more than twice as many guns as there are cars. So a tool not designed to kill, kills 4 times more people than a tool that has over twice as many laying around, and supposedly sole purpose is to kill. One can only imagine in horror what kind of carnage would ensue if they started making cars with the primary use to kill. 100k, 200k dead, maybe more.
and lastly owning firearms is a RIGHT! not a privledge. |
This has to be....one of the whackiest pro-gun/anti car things I have ever read.
Cars kill far more people then guns because far more people rely on cars then guns then guns for everyday use.
Most people don't use guns to go to work, or catch a movie, or go shopping. They use guns either for killing things, attempting to kill things or (most commonly, I imagine) target practice.
Guns and cars...aren't even comparable, and as assault/homicide devices, cars are far less versatile and far more unweildy then pretty much any other implement of death you could choose. Sure, you can kill someone with a car, but you better hope they don't....I don't know, jump out of the way, run into a building or an alley or any of the numerous other places where a car just can't go. Cars can kill, sure, but they aren't really the most effective means of mass murder. You cite that "guns only kill a quarter of the people that guns do", but there is one key thing you are leaving out: the vast majority of those deaths are vehicle ACCIDENTS. People aren't using cars to rob convenience stores. They aren't using them to mowdown people in movie theatres or Sikh temples. They aren't using them in mass vehicular homicides. Hell, go ahead, look them up. I just did, and I couldn't even find statistics for how many people a year a purposefully killed by cars, because its just not a common means of murder. It happens, sure, but guns are still the preferred weapon because they are just better at murder then cars are. Indeed, the same can be said for most weapons. Knives? I looked up mass knifings, and the thing that kept coming up was a serious of mass knifings in China, committed mostly against children. The highest death toll from these knifings? Eight. Thats on the lean side for a US mass killing.
Bombs are about the only other weapon aside from guns that are seriously effective at mass murder, but even they have their issues. You can't hold up a convienience store with a bomb. Utilizing bombs effectively in murder, especially if you have certain targets in mind, requires forethought and planning. You either have to be able to plant the bombs ahead of time where you know people will gather, or you have to go in like a suicide bomber and blow yourself up once your content with the number of people around you. In other words, you can't go on a rampage across an area ala Virginia Tech and Sandyhook.
In the end though, I see people say "well if they didn't use guns, they'd just use something else", I can't help but think....then why don't they use something else? Why don't we have people using cars to commit mass murder? Why don't we have anyone choosing knives to commit mass murder instead? I mean, knives are FAR more common then guns. I don't have a gun, but I have several knives I could use to attempt a mass killing in my kitchen. Then there's bombs, which you can download blue prints of on the internet and build using items that can be legally bought. Yet we haven't been getting very many reports of mass bombings either, despite the fact that, unlike guns or cars, bombs could actually be pretty effective, if used right.
Time and time again though, the weapon of choice has been guns, and I think the answer why is pretty simple: guns are far more versatile and far more deadly then any other weapon. Get a gun with a large enough clip and you can drop a dozen people without even needing to stop to reload. You aren't limited to a certain blast radius, you aren't forced to blow yourself up. You aren't limited to a road or parking lot. You can do it in doors, out doors, and you've got plenty of range. There's a reason the phrase "don't bring a knife to a gun fight" exists. It's because the world isn't an anime, and guns trump knives, and indeed most weapons, every single time.
Lastly, owning a gun isn't a right, its a priveledge. One that should only be granted to responsible, sane citizens like you and me. There are certain people who aren't allowed to drive. There are also certain people who shouldn't own guns. Like the psychos who have been shooting up malls, schools, sikh temples and movie theatres over the last year. There are also certain guns that we just shouldn't own, such as assault weapons and thirty round clips.
sc94597 said:
Yep because historically people were protected and not kiled by their country's militaries, oh wait 260 million people died last century at the whims of their governments.... As for the well regulated militia business, the founders believed ALL people (well men at least) are part of the militia, just read their works and it is quite clear. |
Last I checked, America historically hasn't been a dictatorship that rounded up and exterminated millions of its own people. It wasn't guns that prevented that. It was this little thing called "democracy" where we generally vote against people who do these things.
And last I checked, liberal gun laws haven't actually stopped big government from "oppressing" the populace. The Whiskey Rebellion of 1791 was an armed rebellion against the new government that ended the moment 13,000 militia men from several states arrived to put an end to it. Native Americans owning guns didn't stop us from oppressing them, taking their land, and sending them to reservations.
And today, if our government really wanted to commit mass murder against us, right now, they could. Owning assault rifles won't stop them. They have fighter jets. They have bombers. They have tanks. They have attack helicopters. They have bombs capable of destroying underground bunkers. They have drones capable of delivering death from the sky to wherever they choose. They are technologically much more advanced and strategically are much more organized.
But, again, all of that is a moot point. We aren't going to be installing any dictators any time soon. At the moment, this notion is little more then right wing paranoia meant to combat any discussion about common sense gun control legislation.
And also, while your talking about history, keep this in mind: when the founders said we have a right to bear arms, they didn't have a concept of automatic weapons, hand guns, or 30 round clips. Personally, I'm all for muskets and bayonets being legal.
