Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: Questions the left won't discuss about gun control, but should - and soon. [View all]EdwardBernays
(3,343 posts)Last edited Thu Oct 22, 2015, 03:25 PM - Edit history (1)
Most of Europe has access to rifles and almost no access to handguns..
Guess what, people aren't getting huge numbers of shotguns and rifles and killing themselves or committing crimes...
You list two examples of murder by shotgun, but the statistics don't back up the idea that people kill themselves as frequently with shotguns as they do with handguns... not even close really...
I would also, again, reiterate, that what I would think is reasonable is a single shot and reload type of gun, for hunting. That's it.
If America had all of it's handguns removed and still managed to gun down 10K citizens a year with single shot rifles, then yes, I would think we'd have to look at restricting those as well...
BECAUSE
The rest of the world manages to live with out an epidemic of gun violence. It's possible. All you have to do is hop on a plane and visit any industrialised nation and check for yourself. Where I live, the police don't even carry guns, and people are NOT cowering in their homes at night afraid of armed intruders. Kids don't have to go through metal detectors at schools or have school shooting drills. You may THINK that the "freedom" you have is worth all the death and fear and misery, and worth raising kids to be aware that they could be mowed down at any moment, but no one I know here thinks it is... and neither do many Americans.
Hand guns are owned by 25% of the population, but are used in 8/10 gun crimes. Take them away and you'll only impact 1 of 4 american's right to carry a specific type of gun, and you'll take the main weapon in violent crime off the street.
I'm not anti-hunting, and not anti-gun per se, but I am completely unconvinced that the Founding Fathers would see 30K dead Americans a year and just shrug it off as the cost of freedom..