I don't see as the US as being monsters, just that it seems very very important to you.
I spent a couple of years in the air cadets (youth version of the air force) and I fired rifles there. I can see reasons for it in the military. You're right it is very much a skill and a very important one in human history to be able hit a target.
Archery does something similar but I don't see people collecting hundreds of bows and arrows.
But literally I've never known someone who owns a handgun, or been in a house where there is one. Let alone automatic rifles.
I'm not saying that it's wrong or right just foreign.
Cheers for the invitation :) If you come this side of the pond I'll find some exciting cheese rolling competition for you to do
Oh, I own several dozen bows, a wide collection of arrows, and a couple of crossbows. I take a couple of handicapped people out to hunt and Maine allows handicapped people to hunt with a crossbow.
Wow... We are so far off-topic, but we're being civil and productive so, hopefully, nobody minds too much. Email is available and an option.
On that note, I'd probably rather be shot with a bullet than with a bolt from a crossbow. The energy imparted by a fairly bog standard crossbow at 100 yards is about the same amount of energy imparted by a .45 at 6". The damage a bolt causes is unbelievable, if you're not familiar with it.
Even a simple recurve bow with a 70# draw imparts a great deal of force. I can reasonably fire three arrows in ten seconds.
Anyhow, I do hunt during archery season - if you hadn't guessed. I'll be harvesting my deer during archery season and haven't decided if I'm going to try for a bear with a bow. I'm worried about not getting a clean shot and the bear suffering needlessly.
As mentioned before, I kill and process the vast majority of the meat that I eat. I respect the animal and don't want to cause additional or prolonged suffering.
I guess the partial point I'm making is that a firearm is a tool and needn't be used to harm humans. I have other tools that will readily harm a human. I don't plan on ever doing so and would go to great lengths to avoid doing so.
Not all of us want to be Rambo and dream about fighting off bad guys in an active shooter situation. Unlike the movies, getting shot at kind of sucks and is scary. I'd like to avoid that. The problem is, and it is a problem, we have people who seem to fetishizes just that. We also have crazy people. I submit there's overlap between those two groups.
> I guess the partial point I'm making is that a firearm is a tool and needn't be used to harm humans.
This brings to mind my stance over the last few years regarding firearms, which is I think it would be beneficial to outlaw handguns (as opposed to rifles or shotguns), if it could be feasibly done (it probably can't, there's far too many out there already). Firearms can be utilitarian, but the extra utility offered by miniaturizing them to the point that they are easily carried on your body, and easily hidden on your body, seems to encourage modes of use that are detrimental.
Police, of course, may have reason to need a small firearm handy, but even then there seem to be problems where it's so easy to access that it's used inappropriately (or even accidentally used instead of a taser).
When hunting bears, it's prudent to carry a sidearm. Bears will sometimes stay really still, appearing as if they're dead, and will attack when you get close enough.
(That situation counts for every black bear attack in Maine since the 1880s.)
A rifle isn't as easily maneuvered in tight situations and close up. You don't want to damage the meat more than you have to - so that you're maximizing the value.
Dispatching a wounded animal (of other types) with a pistol is fairly common and the rounds are less likely to cause much more damage.
Additionally, I rabbit hunt with a .22 (Ruger Mk II) frequently. Opportunistic rabbits are delicious and easily taken with a small round.
Then, there's sport shooting. Pistol clubs and competitions are quite common activities in certain spheres. I was on both a rifle and pistol club. (Back then, they were actually functions at my school. Our firearms were locked in the closet in the headmaster's office.)
So, there's justified reasons to own a pistol.
Also, as you suggested, I have no idea how they'd get them off the street. I can't even begin to imagine the uproar.
As an aside, as far as I know, the largest mass killing of civilians in America was at the Battle of Wounded Knee. After disarming the civilians, they massacred a bunch of them, including women and children.
When the Revolution really got started, the British were marching their way to Concord to confiscate the powder, shot, and cannon. They were going to go disarm the citizens.
I have no idea how we'd be able to get pistols off the street and I'm not sure that'd actually solve anything. Most firearm deaths that aren't suicides are caused by people who aren't actually interested in obeying the law.
Even if we could, I'm not sure that I'd want to give up that liberty. Freedom does come with penalties. Liberties come with associated risk. We can speculate that speech is a more a cause than the firearm used to commit the act, I don't want to give up that right either.
As for the police, I'd like to disarm them except for specially trained officers and only for use in certain situations. I don't see that as being political feasible either. Call it a hunch, but that doesn't seem likely to happen.
The political environment, and willingness to cede control to the State, is very different than it is here. I suspect the attempt would mean armed insurrection if tried here.
I am not condoning it, I'm merely pointing out that it's quite probable.
Well, that depends. If those are justified reasons, then there are justified reasons to own and operate a .50 cal BMG rifle, a grenade launcher, or landmines. You can make a sport out of anything, and that something is used as equipment a sport isn't a good reason for its legality. Of the things you mentioned, the bear safety is the most compelling, but that's easily solved by circling widely to the front and putting an extra round in the head. That's safe. It would be nice if handguns could only be used responsibly, but they have specific attributes that I think make them problematic for society.
> Additionally, I rabbit hunt with a .22 (Ruger Mk II) frequently. Opportunistic rabbits are delicious and easily taken with a small round.
When I was young I watched my grandfather take a golpher in the head while it was diving into its hole at 30 yards using a .22 rifle. I pulled the body out of the hole it landed halfway in. I'm not convinced a handgun is required for this either.
> When the Revolution really got started, the British were marching their way to Concord to confiscate the powder, shot, and cannon. They were going to go disarm the citizens.
Sort of a on-sequitur, since we're not talking about removing all firearms, just a specific type of firearm, and one of less use in an armed conflict than the ones I'm proposing we could keep. I believe the right to bear arms is important. I believe in the citizenry's right and responsibility to be a check on the government. I'm just not sure how handguns really support that in a way that isn't by other firearms, and I do think they have unique disadvantages for society.
> Freedom does come with penalties. Liberties come with associated risk.
This argument is all too often unqualified. Should we all be allowed access to RPGs, land mines and missiles? I believe there exist weapons that the regular citizenry don't necessarily need regular access to. If you believe the same, I think it's entirely valid to ask for what criteria makes some of those items valid for that list and not hand guns. That may be easily answered by some, but others might find it hard to justify their initial reaction.
I own multiple firearms in .50 cal, including the vaunted Barrett. I have no qualms with people who can demonstrate safety, proficiency, and sanity being allowed to own firearms of those types.
Firearms are well defined. An RPG or landmine is not a firearm.
Need isn't the issue. You don't need your freedom of speech, either. You don't need your right to be secure in your papers.
Much like all my other liberties, I own firearms because I want to. I speak because I want to.
> I own multiple firearms in .50 cal, including the vaunted Barrett. I have no qualms with people who can demonstrate safety, proficiency, and sanity being allowed to own firearms of those types.
We're not talking about that though. We're talking about liberties, and the right to bear arms, which is very much not restricted to people that can show those skills for the vast majority of the country (which is not to say the majority don't have those skills,just that it's not a requirement of ownership).
> Firearms are well defined. An RPG or landmine is not a firearm.
The liberty in question is the right to bear "arms". While firearms generally means hand-held weapons, "arms" does not. If the right to own and bear these is a liberty that people are not upset about, why, and what's the difference? What about cannons? Historical, or modern? Mortars?
I posit that people have made distinctions based on cultural norms and/or personal desire in mony cases instead of specific attributes that classify them into groups (even if the government has classified them into groups legally), and that handguns, if looked at with an open mind, might not fit into the group of what is considered acceptable (if it wasn't grandfathered in already).
> Need isn't the issue. You don't need your freedom of speech, either. You don't need your right to be secure in your papers.
But need should factor into whether something is a legal exception that is allowed. I would argue that some form of firearms are needed based on the constitution and bill of rights. I'm just not sure handguns are needed.
You may have missed one of my posts. I think we can both agree that certain people should be excluded from owning firearms. Because of the risks involved, I'm very much in favor of testing for competency, safety, security, and sanity.
Right now, we have a problem. Banning and trying to confiscate a firearm type is not a reasonable solution.
Hell, even defining pistol in a useful way is damned difficult.
If need factors into it, we don't need any of our rights. Humans survive in totalitarian regimes.
Place reasonable restrictions and work on the social issues. We both agree reasonable restrictions are a good idea. I submit that your definition of reasonable is different than my own.
It is not okay to take away my liberties because you're afraid of a statistical outlier. Yes, being an outlier sucks, but that's not a good reason to go banning things that scare you.
It's great that you said you're not sure that handguns are needed. That means you're not sure they should be prohibited. If nothing else, that gives us room for discussion.
Liberty is about having the lawful option. It's not about needs. If it were, they'd call them necessities.
I'm not really trying to hammer you on this, I'm more testing out this argument to see how it goes. This is more to find if there's some obvious thing I'm missing.
> Right now, we have a problem. Banning and trying to confiscate a firearm type is not a reasonable solution.
Well, we already ban other types. It's not going to solve anything, but that doesn't mean it might not help in some small way.
> I submit that your definition of reasonable is different than my own.
I was just trying to figure out how you defined reasonable. It's easy for people to say "it's not reasonable" when they really mean "I don't want to think about it in a reasonable manner and explain myself". I'm not accusing you of that.
> It is not okay to take away my liberties because you're afraid of a statistical outlier.
Well, some of your liberties are already denied you, depending on interpretation. Is the important thing that they are "taken away", so you feel it, or that they are denied, in which case whether they exist right now is moot.
> If nothing else, that gives us room for discussion.
That's all this is! :) I'm not sure it would help even if it could be implemented, but I thought it was interesting to discuss.
I spent a couple of years in the air cadets (youth version of the air force) and I fired rifles there. I can see reasons for it in the military. You're right it is very much a skill and a very important one in human history to be able hit a target.
Archery does something similar but I don't see people collecting hundreds of bows and arrows.
But literally I've never known someone who owns a handgun, or been in a house where there is one. Let alone automatic rifles.
I'm not saying that it's wrong or right just foreign.
Cheers for the invitation :) If you come this side of the pond I'll find some exciting cheese rolling competition for you to do