Hard to bring those around to the mall, or sporting events, or out to dinner etc. without being thrown out of the establishment. Pistol fits nice and neat in my holster.
I think the defect in this reasoning is that criminals will, in general, not know ahead of time if their prey is armed. The number of exceptions is probably insignificant. If tsing tao believes he is significantly safer in his home than someone without a firearm, he is deluding himself. Only if all , or a very high percentage, of home owners were armed, would having a loaded gun at home ready to fire have a chance of making a person more secure in their home. And even then they might not be statistically safer. As a matter of statistics, the number of accidental shootings in homes with guns is higher than in homes without. The number of accidental shootings in homes without a firearm is statistically zero. If criminals gave the probability of a proprietor or home owner being armed much consideration, one would expect that very few liquor stores would be robbed; yet liquor store robberies are common. Why? Because they are open late at night when few customers are around. This would seem to be a feature equally as important as the probability of the proprietor being armed, and probably far more important. It seems the U.S. could learn much from studying countries in which firearm ownership is at a high rate; yet gun violence is a small fraction of what it is in the U.S. If firearm ownership were a deterrent of gun crime, the U.S. should have a very low incidence of gun violence; yet the incidence in the U.S. is high. There is definitely something very wrong with tsing tao's reasoning. It is not gun ownership that deters crime, but something else entirely. Good candidates for this something else is type of gun, uniformity and type of gun laws, registration and transfer of ownership requirements. The important factor is clearly not as simple as the rate of private gun ownership. Even so, there can be no question that if guns were distributed evenly in the population -- they are not -- reducing the number of guns uniformly in the population would reduce the probability of a gun being used to commit a crime. If one were to correlate gun ownership with gun crime in different countries, I would guess there would not be a consistent correlation. Any correlation there is would likely be positive rather than negative. It doesn't seem that high rates of private gun ownership correlates at all well with lower incidence of gun crimes. There are countries with high incidence of gun ownership, and incidence of gun crime is low; there are countries with high incidence of gun ownership, and incidence of gun crimes is high. Obviously, there are factors more important than gun ownership, per se, that affect the level of gun crime incidence. Thinking you are any safer in your home because you bought a semiautomatic pistol is foolish. You may in fact be less safe.
I have an overcoat with a pistol pocket. No problems walking across the south loop of Chicago to the train station at night for me. Far more likely to hit someone with my 6.5 lb piece of stainless than shoot anyone but I certainly felt safe.
There are many federal regulations concerning firearms and an entire bureau dedicated to regulating them. Dealer must be federally registered, and you have to go through one to purchase a gun online or from a dealer at a gun show. That means a federal and state background check as well. There are strict regulations concerning importation of firearms. There are federal regulations on things like minimum barrel length. They also regulate things like fully automatic rifles, suppressors and short barrel rifles, all of which require a tax stamp.
Looks pretty jumbled to me: Firearm related matters that are often regulated by state or local laws include the following: Some states and localities require that a person obtain a license or permit in order to purchase or possess firearms. Some states and localities require that individual firearms be registered with the police or with another law enforcement agency. All states allow some form of concealed carry, the carrying of a concealed firearm in public. Many states allow some form of open carry, the carrying of an unconcealed firearm in public on one's person or in a vehicle. Some states have state preemption for some or all gun laws, which means that only the state can legally regulate firearms. In other states, local governments can pass their own gun laws more restrictive than those of the state. Some states and localities place additional restrictions on certain semi-automatic firearms that they have defined as assault weapons, or on magazines that can hold more than a certain number of rounds of ammunition. NFA weapons are weapons that are heavily restricted at a federal level by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. These include automatic firearms (such as machine guns), short-barreled shotguns, and short-barreled rifles. Some states and localities place additional restrictions on such weapons. Some states have enacted castle doctrine or stand-your-ground laws, which provide a legal basis for individuals to use deadly force in self-defense in certain situations, without a duty to flee or retreat if possible. In some states, peaceable journey laws give additional leeway for the possession of firearms by travelers who are passing through to another destination. Some states require a background check of the buyer when a firearm is sold by a private party. (Federal law requires background checks for sales by licensed gun dealers, and for any interstate sales.) Some states have enacted red flag laws that enable a judge to issue an order to temporarily confiscate the firearms of a person who presents an imminent threat to others or to themselves.
Yeah but's retarded to think that you need it in those places. It must be that amygdala thing again. It does make it easy for criminals and the insane to assault and murder, that's why handguns should be banned.
If you disarm everyone, criminals will know for certain you are not armed. Won't they? Criminals won't be giving up their firearms, but they will know you have. By putting a sign like this in my little rock garden in the front It is quite obvious that any criminal coming into my house will be met with deadly force. If I am a criminal and I see a house with this sign, and a house next door doesn't have it, I'd pick the house next door to molest. Also cuts down on vendors soliciting! As for accidental shootings, this doesn't happen when the owner of the firearm is smart. All my weapons are secured. Why would very few liquor stores be robbed? Are you saying liquor store owners are always armed? Because they aren't. They protect themselves with plexi glass and things like that, but unless you have some stat showing they are armed, this argument is horseshit. And, further, you are advocating the ones that are armed be disarmed. Criminals will love that. There's certainly something wrong with the reasoning of someone here, that is without question. You think that violence is directly related to one variable - guns. I think it is a bunch of variables, stemming from income inequality, to disintegration of the family unit (lack of fathers or good parents), lack of schooling, drugs, and yes, guns. You just want to go after the gun. Yet it is my reasoning that is off. What a joke. Gun ownership doesn't deter crime. It allows a response if someone wants to threaten you. I don't own guns because I love them. I own them because they are the only response to being attacked. I know you liberals think that women should pee themselves when they are threatened by a rapist, but I think a gun works much better. Oh yeah, I forgot. You're a libertarian. A special kind of libertarian that advocates gun seizure. Huh. You'd guess wrong. Have a look at Switzerland. We aren't less safe. You just don't get it.
And all this does is to demonstrate two things: 1) A patch work of conflicting state/local laws is extremely ineffective. There should be nationwide laws regarding guns that all localities & states must follow and cannot add further restrictions to. This includes a nationwide comprehensive concealed carry law. 2) A large number of the state & locality gun laws infringe on the second amendment simply by being more restrictive than national law.
Just because you're ok with being mugged and raped or potentially shot doesn't mean the rest of us enjoy it. Would you like me to post all the times people were shot in malls and restaurants or public places in general? So how would you get the criminals and the insane to give up their guns in your ban?