GUN CONTROL

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR>If I'm using my gun to feel secure,...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>How does owning a gun make you feel more secure? If someone with a gun enters your house, you won't be scared because you have one in a safe yourself? If you walk the streets at night, you aren't be scared of getting shot/robbed/raped because you have one lying at home yourself? Or are you saying you would carry your gun at all times? And if someone holds a gun against your head, you don't feel threatened because you have one in your pocket yourself? You don't get scared in a shootout? (Just wondering....)

I think this is where your reasoning (and that of the other pro-arms people) fails. You would only feel secure as long as you were not confronted with anybody pointing a gun at you. And if you allowed everybody to purchase firearms (no matter what their reasons for buying one were), you would be confronted with them a lot more than today.

If nobody were allowed to bear arms and nobody did, would you still need to defend your home? There are a lot more problems that need to be solved in the US (like ghettos, equal rights, justice for all), before you could reach this utopia. But you are simply looking at a tiny aspect of the problem ("bad people carry guns, so I want one as well"). I ask you again: If you owned a gun, would you always feel safe? I don't think so.

And yes, a pen can be lethal. But arms were specifically designed to harm people. Pens were not. The majority of people (probably 99.99%) use pens for writing. The number of peolpe being penned to death (worldwide, yearly) is probably less than 10. So there's no point in comparing the two. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR>Why am i using an instrument thats designed to kill? Because I dont kill people with it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>But a large number of people do use guns to harm/threaten others. And a gun does a far better job of it than a pen, too.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR>This is why America was formed, this is why we left Europe in the first place.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>LOL, I can see it now. 30 million Europeans (from different countries) all suddenly saying: "Let's leave this crap behind and go to America. I don't know what that is, because it hasn't been discovered yet, but it must be a lot better than this place"

[This message has been edited by Azmo (edited 06-17-2000).]

Actually, I think a comparison between the Netherlands and the US might be very useful:<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>The Dutch have never been allowed to bear arms. We have no desire to bear any, either. We are concerned about our rights, but do not count the "right" to bear arms among them. A few people get duped, a lot get to live, that's our perspective.
<LI>We have strict laws, registration and licencing procedures for hunters and people who want to own rifles for sports. If you lose your gun, you're in deep $hit.
<LI>The police and customs officers see to it that a minimum of illegal weaponry enters our country.
<LI>When we get pulled over by the police it's either because we did something wrong, or they want to check our breaths for the presence of alcohol. If you haven't drunk too much, you just blow in the tube, the officer thanks you for your cooperation, and you drive off. He'll also point out any minor defects of your car.
<LI>We do not see the point above as an invasion of our privacy, but as something we do for the benefit of our community. Drunk drivers are being taken from our roads, that's what matters to us.
<LI>We have less harddrug related crimes. Junkies are seen as victims, and receive help accordingly. Yes, it costs a lot of tax-payers' money, but we're avoiding a lot of crime and insecurity this way (and crime is expensive, too).
<LI>If the Dutch police find out you're a harddrug dealer, your a$$ is toast. They will not wait for an incident to happen, they're gonna make sure you're out of business ASAP.
<LI>The Dutch have a 99% chance that a burglar entering their homes won't be armed with anything more than a screwdriver. Just scream from your room that you're calling the cops, and most of them will get the hell out of your house.
<LI>Our government warns us against the threat of burglars and the police provides us with information on how to secure our homes.
<LI>Marihuana is condoned by our government. If you carry less than five grams, it's perceived as being for private use. You can buy marihuana in coffeeshops, which are (supposedly) monitored by the government. This has taken the purchase of softdrugs away from the hardcore drugdealers. Before this policy was accepted, you bought marihuana from guys who were selling harddrugs as well. That made it very easy to experiment and get hooked to "the bad stuff".
<LI>We don't get frisked unless we committed a crime. Hardly anybody gets beat up by the cops because they're black. Of course there are minor incidents.
<LI>We do not have a racial problem as big as the US does. Coloured people here have a fairly good chance of getting an education and a good job (still less than the white people, unfortunately). We do not have ghettos like the Bronx or Harlem. There's no real need for anyone to enter a clan if they want to get some cash. The number of clans in our country is very small, and can easily be dealt with by the police.
<LI>Only hardcore criminals (drugdealers, pimps, bankrobbers, hooligans ) have guns in our country. They're not gonna waste bullets on some dumb prick like me just to get $10; they're gonna use them when they really need to, because guns are hard to get.
<LI>Our country has slowly developed over the past two millennia. Yours is about 200 years old. (Believe me, this makes a difference)
</UL>
The situation is slowly getting worse here, though.

So what does all this add up to? We don't want or need guns. Maybe because we're not threatened by any, maybe because we know getting more guns to fight guns is not a solution, but an increase of a problem.

Analogy (I think): The Netherlands are located mostly beneath sealevel and are protected by dikes. We ensure our safety by manning these and inspecting them for any possible weaknesses. As long as we make sure there's never any breaches, there's only a minimal effort involved. Once the dikes breach though, a huge effort is needed to stop the flood and reclaim our country.

I think the US has already let their dikes breach too much (allowed too many firearms). If you want to reclaim your country, simply banning guns will not help you one bit (as I have said a number of times before). You'd have to actively search for firearms, improve the chances of coloured people, fight harddrugs with a vengeance, get rid of corrupt (i.e. all ) politicians, etc. Then, after a few decades, you would see some changes. But I fear that if you decide to allow people the right to bear arms, you will never be able to change back, and your problem will increase tenfold.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR>Don't do what you can't undo, until you've considered what you can't do once you've done it<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Prince Verity - Assassin's Apprencice - Robin Hobb Read it.

Note: The comparison above is based on my (limited) knowledge of the US society. Feel free to correct me.

Actually, that's not much of a comparison, now is it? It looks more like a summary of the "Dutch" situation and point of view. I guess it all comes down to this: nobody wants guns, because nobody needs guns, because nobody has guns, because we never let anybody have any.

Once you let all people get their hands on firearms, you end up with a downward spiral: More guns = more murders = more people demanding more guns = .....

If you can't solve the problem (just yet), at least try to prevent it from getting worse.


Still desperately trying to make sense...

[This message has been edited by Azmo (edited 06-19-2000).]

Slachter, I know it's a sore spot, but it's part of the problem. As long as a large number of people have no future to look forward to, except a life of crime (selling drugs or weapons), the US will never be a safe/peaceful/united country. Make sure everybody has the same rights/opportunities, and a lot of hatred/dissatisfaction will (probably) disappear.

You can't just look a the right to bear arms and proclaim all your troubles will be over once you own a gun. You have to look at the country, it's citizens and it's history as a whole. Solutions to these problems are never easy, but focussing on one or two aspects and basing your solution on that may only make things worse.

BTW, I lived in Amsterdam for four years, and I've been to the Bijlmer (at night). I agree it's scary, but the stories(?) I've heard about the NY ghettos are a lot worse.

BTW2, guess which country was one of the worse slave traders and had only one contribution to international vocabulary: "apartheid". We just don't have to live with that part of our history every day. (And I'm not saying the US does, or that anybody should)

Oh, and hooligans mostly carry knives, chains, baseball bats and lead pipes. Hardly ever guns.