Originally posted by aldo_14
That's why I added the caveat of 'normal use'. Obviously, anything can kill or injure if used in a certain way, but not all things are designed to do so as guns are.
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Axe. It's designed to kill. It's also standard household thing, with current purpose less on killing and more on chopping things, but I use axe to kill frequently :V
You could also extend that to so-called pain weapons; you could construe them as injurious due to both potential physical and psychological effects. Use of them would probably also be illegal anyways under existing laws against assault, etc (specifically torture, although I'm not sure if there is specific legislation).
I would view it as highly unlikely that devices capable of controlled torturous pain (i.e. oppossed to the likes of mace) would be permitted under law - it would simply be under a different law as to one controlling guns.
Well
I don't really like this idea.
That's my point exactly. Why do we need a device purposely designed to kill anything, for private use? (note that I would not define the likes of pest control, essential cullls, etc, under private use). There's not really much use for a gun beyond killing / crippling I can think of that could not be better performed by another tool not designed too kill.
I don't really think how killing animals over rabbitt size for A) fun and B) food could be done with any other weapon than a gun. You'd need a ridiculous crossbow for such a thing.
But you don't need to kill rabbits, do you? And in the question of optionality - allow hunting, etc versus the dangers of gun crime from legally purchased weapons - I'd err on the side of safety. (and if you do need to kill rabbits for food or something, I'm sure there are other ways to do so).
Sometimes people actually do have to kill rabbits, minks, raccoon dogs, foxes, gulls and stuff like that. It's not very easy to do with something else than a gun. Plus, quite a few people draw pleasure from, if not from killing something, then the actual act of hunting. I hunt with my binoculars and my camera also, but those don't kill minks.
Actually, there's this pretty large city's garden just 300 meters from where I'm writing this from.
They kill brown hares and introduced there with a crossbow, because they're a goddamn nuisance over here. Apparently the crossbow is for them THE weapon of choice. It's silent (we're in a city), powerful (the target usually just stops dead) and pretty accurate at shorter ranges. Then there's this bunch of enviromentalists who are trying to eradictate every single mink and raccoon dog from the protected areas, and they have to use guns. They say that killing an animal outright is pretty much a must in their job, and no other thing does it as swiftly, painlessly and cost-effectively as a gun (you could drag them to some kind of concentration centers or something, and the prices would skyrocket. ugh). As well as eliminating pest animals.
That's one use of a gun. Basically most (over 90%) of guns where I live are for hunting duties, and we have one of the biggest gun-per-capita ratios (it even rivals many areas of USA). We do have gun accidents and shootouts (drunken husband kills his wife and her lover is the basic story, apprently..) every now and then, but actually most of the time people used guns as a tool of death it was a suicide.
Gun crime, 1995 (latest I found):
Homicides, murders etc, guns: 30
Suicide, gun: 291
Homicides, murders, overall, 1995: 156
Attempted: 376
Suicides: 1388 (jesus christ)
If the gun is not a popular, easily achievable "every household" piece of junk, the amount of crimes where legally purchased guns are involved falls pretty low. In many crimes where gun was used in any way the gun was illegal. I readily admit that this does not apply to USA, where gun is practically a right - here you have to work for it, a lot; you can't just walk into a store, buy a gun and so on - you have to have licences for pretty much everything you could imagine.
I don't put a lot of trust in the idea that we can just rely on gun owners; firstly, even the best regulated license system is prone to abuse - both Thomas Hamilton and Michael Ryan managed to buy their guns under legal license, for one thing - and secondly, you guarentee that a 'sane' gun owner will always be so. In the latter case, what do you do - run regular psychiatry checks on the licensee? If so, how can you do so frequently enough in order to ensure the risk level is the same as simply not allowing the weapons to be sold?
I pray. No kidding, I am well aware that gun crime is present whereever guns are available. However, as I tend to despise nanny states (I am a socialist too, wtf), I try to give
responsibility to people (which is useless, but nonetheless). I also see that whenever gun ownership is strictly controlled, but not banned outright, the crime rate falls down into acceptable levels.
Thirdly, there's the argument that any form of legal weapons trade provides a basis for increased shipments into a country, in turn increasing the number potentially available to criminals - whereas banning them means you can solely focus on tracking down any illegal existing shipments; there's a degree of evidence to this in that the UK police have noted that there are more and more cases of the same gun being 'rented' for use across the country. Whilst this is worrying in another way (harder to track individuals based on their weapon), it would imply that there are simply less guns available to buy. Apparently, there are also less criminals carrying concealed guns due to both the level of punishment and the scarcity.
In summary... there is a degree of public safety in completely banning gun ownership, which I believe cannot be matched by any legal (i.e. not draconian or verging into 1984 territory) licensing system, and furthermore I believe that this safety comes at virtually no cost to the public 'good'. [/B]
I think people's hobbies, enviromental use in both hunting, wandering, pest control etc. and the economic repercussions would be a good reason to allow something potentially dangerous?
