Days after the shooting in Oregon, the gun control issue is once again at the forefront of political rhetoric in the United States. Even as a gun rights advocate, I can understand Mr. Obama’s opinion. This is a tragedy. Things like this have happened and do continue to keep happening. In fact, guns (shootings) and mental conditions are indeed two of the primary underlying sources in every mass murder we see. I understand completely what Mr. Obama says:
“I hope and pray that I don’t have to come out again during my tenure as president to offer my condolences to families in these circumstances. But based on my experience as president, I can’t guarantee that. And that’s a terrible thing to say.”
In the spirit of transparency, I am an American Libertarian. I do support conservative gun rights. As an American, here is my perspective on the matter. When we observe the history of this country, as Americans, we understand that this country exists in part because of gun rights. The citizens formed a revolt, went to war and revolutionized a country to form a brand new country. The citizens who fought the British could not have defeated the army if they did not have plenty of access to firearms. From 1775 through to today gun rights remain an essential right for the citizens of this country. Gun rights serve as a protection against tyranny. Philosophically, when the citizens of a country are armed equally to the capacity of the government, this ensures that the government will never have the ability to attack or overthrow the will of the people. In this way gun rights serve as a protection against government while preserving liberty.
“It is the duty of a true patriot is the protect his country from its government.” – Thomas Payne – 1776
But,the fact is that our country has changed since the 1700’s. Our lifestyle and culture is not the same as it once was when this country was founded. The spirit of the second amendment was written in a world which existed over 200 years ago. In that day, it was actually very necessary to have a gun in order to hunt for food and to protect their farm/crops. Guns were needed in society so people could provide for their families. Today guns are luxury items, used as toys or for sport. Though guns do have practical uses for some people in this country, throughout different part of the country, as a whole guns seem to present more of a social hazard/liability than they provide practical use.
Does the average citizen in rural America actually “need” an assault rifle? Should proven criminals with multiple offenses be allowed access to any firearms like they currently do? Should people living in large crowded urban cities be allowed to possess multiple firearms or carry in public?
Literally, the purpose of a gun is to be a weapon used to inflict great harm and/or death. I stop and think for a moment. How is something that is designed, produced, and sold solely for this purpose not controlled more responsibly by our government?
These are the issue as is currently being debated in America today.
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You are absolutely WRONG! Today more than ever Americans find themselves exposed to danger, and a gun was invented to make yourself able to wield deadly force in the face of danger. The problem is too many anti-gun people have created ‘GUN FREE ZONES’ where criminal elements feel free to prey on unarmed humans. If these GUN FREE ZONES were eliminated completely then murderers and criminals would be always wondering if their actions would get them killed! Most criminals are COWARDS and would not try an attack in an unknown situation! So, in my mind…you ARE the problem!
You fucking moron. I live in a gun-free zone COUNTRY called Canada. That’s the problem with the pro-gun lobby, they always rely on bullshit rhetoric and never look at the actual facts. Oh please pull out the next bullshit argument, the “only criminals will have guns” one. That’s where I get to say, and where did they get them from? Why don’t you go live in a war-zone and see how safe you feel. Idiot.
what are you so angry about? If your a gun nut, there has never been a better time to live in this country. care to back up your comments with some statistics? your speaking emotionally out of your anus, with no factual backing. Civilians prevent gun violence less than 1% of the time. You really want to live in a country with more guns per capita than ANYWHERE, including awesome places like serbia, yemen, and saudi arabia? Read the last paragraph of this article again, and again, and again! What is a gun? What does it do? to think that more guns, less restrictions for civilians, and the need for guns for protection has FAILED – factually, over and over again. There are over 40 gun deaths a day in this country, and to not only think that change isn’t necessary, but that a more armed populace is better – is just flat socially irresponsible. And for the record – mass shootings are not the biggest problem! Crime isn’t the biggest problem – gun accidents, suicides, domestic violence, and guns in the hands of untrained people are way bigger problems. the lack of reporting all the gun deaths that happen every day is the problem. the bottom line is less guns in society means less gun deaths. this simple fact seems to elude otherwise very smart people. remove emotion, do the research, see success stories of other countries, and attempt to approach this social problem with a mind, and not with emotional nonsense.
I am sorry you find that delusion of yours to be so very real. That being said, it is common sense that people who expect to be safe and worry free should be gun free zones, like at schools, churches, cinemas and shopping centers. Yet in the past decade, we have seen guns that hold large amounts of ammunition wielded by the mentally depraved kill people where they least suspect. However, this is not in defiance of the “Gun Free” zones, no, it is because they legally owned the guns, decided to carry them on their merry way without anyone stopping them. Even those with concealed weapons did nothing to stop them, as admitted by those at the Colorado Shooting incident. Columbine had armed guards, yet the two boys who were social pariahs were smart enough to get past them and kill more than a dozen people. One young mentally disturbed man managed to infiltrate an elementary school and killed 6 able bodied adults and 20 children because the gun he carried was owned by his mother, whom he killed earlier that day. These are not “bad guys who got guns illegally” these are the people who are legally allowed to get guns because they are under lax requirements due to the restrictions of an archaic Constitutional Amendment.
The Founding Fathers had no way that people would live the way we do now, with comparatively dense populations and weapons more advanced than their muskets. They did not expect their 13 colonies to be 50 full fledged states. They could not predict the future, but could only plant the seeds for a new country free from a tyrannical king. They probably hoped we would use our better judgment and value life over property, but people like you worship the gun like a god and those who blaspheme against it are heathens. You think new gun laws would take away the guns you already own, but laws don’t work ex post facto. They would only limit the FUTURE sales of guns, and their ammo and magazine sizes. There is no logical reason an ordinary citizen needs armor piercing ammo or an AR-15 or magazines that hold an obscene amount of bullets, unless you are looking for a fight. And it seem anyone who is pro-gun is armed to the teeth, looking to play the good guy in a Wild West fantasy that will never come to pass. What you are is playing with fire, and allowing the laws exist as they are today, that fire is going to spread and burn down this nation.
I understand what your saying until after you say we need to be armed to protect ourselves from tyranny and then say we shouldn’t have access to assault rifles. Take a look at our officers they are driving tanks for God’s sake. Think 1985 Philadelphia bombing. They were shooting resident for crawling out of the ruble they left. Our officer are given assault rifles are wanting the public to have to go back to single shots, I wonder why
But the firepower the avg. gun owner has access to won’t do a damn thing against an Abrhams tank. If our gov’t. wanted to go back to tyranny, which it wouldn’t, and isn’t, your pop-guns aren’t gonna do a damn thing against 500 lb. bunker buster.
From my cold dead hand!… yea… EXACTLY – the whole idea that civilian weapons would protect against the tyranny of gunship choppers, armored vehicles, RPG’s, light machine guns, etc is absurd. So yea, your 100% right – hillbillies and their collections of guns for protection… for the most part a complete farce of emotional nonsense.
I know you think you are for firearm rights but your blurb here says you’re not. There are many people who don’t agree with “I do not believe any average citizen in the United States seriously needs an assault rifle.” You see, while you may think that we average citizens should be limited on what we’re allowed to have our government is constantly developing new weapons of mass destruction. The weapons we’re “allowed” to have are no match so if our government wished to attack us well, while we’re plinking at them with our .22 they’ll be slaughtering us with howitzers or bunker busters. There’s a valid purpose to the second amendment and it still applies to this day. There’s about 6 million Jews who would school you on the ramifications of gun control..if they could.
What kind of dribble is this? The American population isn’t controlled by bullets. They’re controlled by taxes, by stock prices, by oil… How in the hell can you say that, because every man, woman and child has a gun you think you’re free!!?? Haha, this must be a joke.
Your real protection against tyranny is information, organization, and the courage of your convictions. I wonder how many guns Edward Snowden owned. how many did he use, need, to affect the world the way he did. In this day and age a handgun has only one purpose, to kill as many people as close to you as you can in the shortest amount of time. They are meaningless in the context of national and international politics. If you wanted to save yourselves from tyranny, you would have overthrown the puppet government installed by your supreme court in 2001.
You Americans won’t get the guns carried out of your system and that’s because of the f***cking MONEY involved!! Even Obama should have politicized this issue when he started his job; but hey I’m just a Dutch guy so keep my mouth shut!!??
Usual responses.
2nd amendment no longer applies, you will not be able to defend yourself against tyranny. You have lost so many rights and freedoms the US is now ranked 42nd free-est country in the world – and I’ve not seen anyone storming capitol hill.
do what we did in the UK, and what Australia did – control gun ownership, and you will see a huge reduction in deaths. You might even be able to take your children to school without wondering if you’ll ever see them alive again.
Wooooooow, so much political rhetoric in all these comments. It is quite simple really. Gun ownership is a right. It is a right for citizens that are mentally stable. The problem here is, if someone wants to go on a mass murder spree there are many many many ways a person can do that. It isn’t about whether a person has access to a gun they just have to have access to ingredients. Bombs can be made out of off the shelf items. Knives can be just as deadly as a gun. So can hatchets or other sharp objects. No matter what you do there is always that possibility.
I firmly believe that the second amendment is still valid in this century. I for one don’t want to be unarmed if, the good Lord forbid, someone breaks into my home and threatens the well being of my family. Then again, I grew up with and have been properly trained in the use of a firearm so there is some difference in that. I also don’t have mental instability.
Do I believe that everyone should be allowed a gun? No. There does need to be a process by which the Seller of a weapon must try to test the mental stability of the purchaser and make sure they have been through a relevant course on the proper handling and use of a weapon. This would make the cost go up but whats that cost compared to a persons life and safety?
Guns can be bought whether the sale of them is stopped by the government. Would it be less convenient? Of course but it is not going to stop someone dead set on committing a massacre. There are multiple points of view on this topic and all I can say is no one person is right but at the end of the day the right to bear arms is a right for the protection of home and family and for hunting.
I understand that a large number of murderers are mentally unstable, and that it causes skepticism, but it’s unfair to just stigmatise people just because they were born with a ‘mental disorder’. I have Bipolar Disorder, and because of this everyone just assumes that if I purchase a gun, at some point I’ll just lose my shit and go on a rampage, shooting people with it. And no doubt someone will feel the need to counter argue my point.
See I don’t agree with you on that point. There are a lot of people with “mental disabilities” living normal lives. I may say they need to basically undergo a psych eval but that does not mean that people with, to use you for example, Bipolar disorder are not taking the steps to keep it under control and are mentally capable of properly handling and owning a firearm. When I say mentally stable I mean mentally STABLE. I am not a psychologist nor do I honestly want to be one but SOMETHING has to be done to try and control guns getting into mentally unstable hands.