You haven't checked the crime rates in the USA lately? Or killing rates. Of the western world the USA performs worse in both categories, and you say gun-owning lowers crime???? And the school killings were definitely not that common once it was actually hard to acuire a gun. If you make a gun a normal, accepted item. it is not strange that it will be used more often then elsewhere.

Here in Europe hardly anyone owns a gun, and I'm glad about it.  

a while ago in Australia there was this event- the Port Arthur massacre. after that, the government made it a lot more difficult to obtain firearms in Aus. and... there hasnt been one massacre since!

Well, use of guns makes it easier to commit murder(techically, not morally), or multiple murders. It is a bit harder to do it with knife, and takes more energy too.

The arguments about how making guns illegal only makes good and righteous citizen vunerable is a bit far-fetched. we all know that almost every human being can be driven to the state of temporary madness(pressure, stress and so on), where his acts aren't rational, and with a gun it's easier to make more mess in that state. Not to mention the percentage of population which aren't mentally very stable. Making gun available to those ppl can't grant good and righteous citizens safety, even if they have a whole arsenal of AK47's.

 Yeah, but once your dead that doesn't really matter a lot, does it? A knife attack can be avoided much easier than a gun shot, so I'd take more knives over more guns all the time.

Gun ownership is a double-edged sword.

On one hand, it's fantasitc to own a gun in America. In my 4 person family, we own 3 shotguns, 3 assault rifles, 2+ handguns, 2 bolt action rifles, and maybe another .22 caliber rifle.

Having that kind of firepower is alot of fun - target shooting is a blast when your using an M-16 clone, in which I can hit a soda pop can easily from 150 meters (yards) in 1 shot, very easily.

Hunting is also great - deer in Ohio, my home state, are very large - you can go hunting with a shotgun, and in 1 shot (about 20 cents), you can bag a deer that has 200lbs of meat. Great value, even when processed.

Then there's the self-defense part of it, both from the government and the home part.

But on the opposite side, firearm crime is higher than most other countries, merely because even with restrictions they are still rather accesible.


So there are arguments on both sides of the spectrumn.

American culture is VERY different than any other country, which is why we have very free gun laws. Our country is bigger, and more rural than most any other - increasing the hunting aspect of gun ownership. Ohio is huge on deer hunting, since if we did not do it, deer would get horrible diseases from overpopulation, and damage alot of crops in the state, and hurt other animal populations.

Also, we violently rebelled against a repressive British government comprising our military of a large portion of militia, and various aspects of citizen/soldiers. Americans are vastly more profiecent in the military from a base point of view, because of that revolution, and the various struggles we've had over the years. Gun ownership has played a huge part in this.

And of course, we have self-defense reasons as well. American states that have recently introduced the Castle Docterine into state law have seen strong drops in crime rates, showing even further that an armed society with concealed guns creates a safe society.


Lets ask this simple question: would a person attempt to rob, rape, steal, or any sort of crime of those sorts if he knew the victim was going to kill them? Gun ownership creates problems like that for criminals.

America is a violent country, not because of our guns, but because of our people. When you have a society that blends hundreds of cultures together, problems occur. Guns just happen to be there for some to use for major problems.

Not only this, as long as Americans are responsible in their gun ownership, we have fewer problems - I was trained with a gun when I was 5 years old. Guess what? We've never had any gun-related issues in my family. In fact, I'd venture to say it's nearly impossible for any issues to occur in a family where the family took a strong stance on the responsibility of gun ownership.


Feel free to not own guns in whatever countries you live in, but guns are here forever - ban them, burn them, throw them away. But as long as you have evil people, you will have powerful devices of destruction. You don't avoid crime by avoiding guns. You avoid crime by avoiding creating criminals.

And on a end note: why does Switzerland, a country with one of the highest gun ownership rates have one of the lowest crime rates in the world?

I haven't read any other posts in this thread. With that said:

I live in Georgia. I own a gun because of my occupation. Before that, I never touched one, and had serious concerns about people who did own them. Now, I realise that people around here are gun crazy. They were raised that way. Little kids that are 7 years old have guns (illegaly) that their parents have given them. Several times, I will stop a car and see a rifle or pistol in the passenger seat- if it's not concealed & the owner has a license to carry, then it's not against the law.

People at my office will ridicule me for spending $400 on a videogame console, but will think nothing of dropping $800+ on a firearm. I may be the only persoh in my office (females included) with just ONE gun.

On the flipside, aside from suicides, it's extremely rare for me to respond to a call where somebody had gotten shot. Still, just this past Sunday, I had to take a gun away from a man who caught his wife cheating, and was trying to kill her. Lot's of anxiety, to say the least.

No. I think owning and wanting to own firearms (without a truly valid reason such as hunting or some such - i.e. police officer or soldier) is not normal and only makes life more dangerous.

To add to mrstickball's comment:

I personally don't own any guns, but my older brother owns (at last count) 27 weapons ranging from rifles, pistols, a crossbow, shotguns, to a disabled uzi. Why? He collects notable pieces. Weapons that have historical meaning to him. He has WWII American, Russian, German, British, and Japanese weapons. Even a "Tommy" gun from the early part of this century. Heck, one of the pistols handed down to him by my grandfather who worked in the prison holding some high ranking German officers after WWII is supposedly one used by one of these high ranking German officers. If the paperwork were there, this one pistol alone would be worth more than the entire collection. It's worth more to him sentimentally than it is monetarily. He's also a hunter. Now for most of the people here reading this who are anti-gun, your probably thinking that my older brother is reminiscent of Rambo, strapped with 14 guns on his shoulder when he goes to the store I assume? Hardly. The weapons are stored in a set of rather large gun safes and he pulls some of these out on a regular basis to maintain, and fire some of the weapons at stationary targets.

So, as a matter of statistics, you would tell me that my brother is a murderer (or that he would have a +2700% chance to murder than I would simply because he owns them.) Does that make sense?

It's not the amount of guns one owns, but how they are treated, secured, and maintained.

Lastly, and I'm done with this conversation after this, instead of taking an impossible stance at disarming America you should be taking a stance at educating. People who are trained to use and maintain a weapon are less likely (I'd argue impossible) to accidentally shoot themselves. Since my brother keeps his collection behind a rather complicated combination safe, his daughter has about a 1 in a million chance of ever getting to these guns and accidentally pulling the trigger. Instead of hiring a police officer to raid his house and take all the guns, hire a trainer and a teacher to teach gun safety and control. Require that a person legally acquiring the gun have a training certificate. You'll save more lives teaching than you will by taking them away.

In prisons, where guns were not available, people would make their own out of common materials. You don't need high grade metals and fancy machines to make lethal projectile weapons. You think that taking away guns and allowing everyone knives, those interested in making projectile weapons will not do so?

Even water, in a large sealed steel container can be a lethal bomb if it were heated to the point of explosion. You could arguably park a car in a crowded street with a small steam chamber in it's trunk and kill hundreds without ever touching a gun, or regulated chemicals.

Taking away guns is not a "magic bullet" to solve violent crime.

 I'd argue that in all the above situations, it's the lack of trainining, and external circumstances (domestic problems) that are the root cause.  Not the guns.  The man who caught his wife cheating could have just as easily killed her with a kitchen knife or a rock.  Those with loaded guns in the front seat are asking for someone to take said weapon and use it.  Mark those up to ignorance, and like I said, lack of training.

On the topic of training, I would be absolutely in favor of requiring everyone to pass a firearms safety course before being allowed to own a firearm. We do it for driving machines (and I think driver's ed should be much more rigorous than it is), why not do it for killing machines?