I've generally stayed on the Amendment 2 side of the gun control debate, even though I'll never own a gun personally. This is mostly for the same reasons as illegal drugs... making them illegal is impossible to enforce and creates a profitable black market for organized crime, only ones with guns are criminals etc. And having camped in the Rocky Mountains many times, I can definitely understand the desire for carrying a firearm there.
However, a friend on Facebook provoked the question how often do guns actually have a positive effect? Googling shows a few pages claiming relatively high incident rates (>100K) of gun use in self defense, so one could theoretically say there are some number of related saved lives due to guns. But no one really knows as it is very what-if, and the large majority of those seem to be petty robbery defense cases.
Then, as another friend from the UK and his limey kin will point out, there are virtually never handgun deaths/violence in the UK. This link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate shows almost 2 orders of magnitude difference in firearm death between the USA (~9) and UK (~.2), per 100K population per year.
The UK as far as I know does not have a terrible black market gun problem, nor have I ever feared getting shot on many visits and many drunken nights through various cities and streets and alleys there. Mugged? yes. Shot? no.
I can't count the number of times I've feared being shot growing up in Alabama and Colorado (any of my high school friends from Aurora can sympathize), and in fact have had guns pulled on me two times, including once pointed at me from a foot away, and I know several people who have actually been shot.
So now I'm pondering...
Can anyone explain the difference between the US and the UK on this topic, if it is not gun control? I have a few theories on other factors that contribute (namely illicit drug policy and religious atmosphere), but I suspect they are marginal compared to simply not having 270 FUCKING MILLION guns laying around their country (http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states#number_of_privately_owned_firearms).And finally, what's the point of owning a gun anymore?
Sorry hunters: I don't give a shit anymore about your joy of killing an animal with a tool that you had nothing to do with inventing, unless your name is Smith or Wesson and you're over 150 years old.Sorry militia men: If the world's most well funded military wants to oppress us all someday, your fucking Glock isn't going to stack up against a $700B annual budget. Seriously. It's not 1776 anymore folks. We have lasers that will put a pin hole in your heart from a mile away, insta-kill.
Sorry inner city: I know there are cops that are bad people and assholes just like any other line of work. But maybe they'd be somewhat less on edge if they didn't think every small time asshole they have to deal with is more likely than not packing heat.
Sorry self-defense advocates: Learn kung-fu, kraw-maga, gymnastics, or get in shape so you can run zig zag patterns if you're that paranoid. The couple of times I've had guns pulled on me, there was zero chance if I would have been armed with a gun I could have done anything but got myself or someone I cared about killed. Had I known close quarter physical combat techniques however, in both cases I might have had a realistic option.
Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people... but guns make killing a lot of people quickly really easy. Try to demonstrate how any of the 3 major incidents in the last year are even close to the same magnitude with a non-firearm weapon.
So yeah. I'm pretty much done with guns.
