View Single Post
Old 12-12-07, 07:22 PM   #9 (permalink)
akgamer0615
User
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Last Online: 08-02-08 02:15 PM
Posts: 39
Thanks: 11
Thanked 5 Times in 5 Posts
Lean: Independent
Gender: Male

idea Re: Do Fewer Guns Mean Less Crime?

I believe that before restricting firearms further, we should consider the consequences of doing so.
First, you could argue, restricting guns will prevent criminals from acquiring them. FALSE. The vast majority of people who purchase firearms are not buying them to commit crimes, and never will. What you are doing by restricting the sale further is preventing people from acquiring protection against criminals who DO have firearms.
Also, remember that criminals do things that are ILLEGAL. So, remembering this, if criminals are unable to acquire firearms legally, how will they acquire them? Well, illegally of course--they've already decided to or have committed crimes, so they won't care if they acquire their firearms by illegal means.
Consider the two paragraphs above. It is quite clear that, by limiting the sale of firearms, you are leaving more innocent people defenseless, and more criminals with weapons.
So, what happens when a criminal has a gun and breaks into your home? Well, without a weapon to defend yourself, you don't stand much of a chance; a baseball bat or pepper spray to defend yourself--ya......you try running at a criminal with that, and I can guaruntee that they can fire a bullet through you before you can prepare to swing or "spray".
Basically, by limiting gun control, you are leaving citizens defenseless against criminals who are going to acquire the weapons one way or another.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Mach View Post

You seem to be missing the actual point here.
If you give a tool that can be used to defend against, or commit crimes, among other things, to a population that does not committ crimes, and therefore has little need to defend against said crimes, *Why would you think adding guns would increase crime rate?*

If you take a less stable population that participates in a lot more crime, and you give them guns, you will expect to see more guns used in crimes, necessarily, and more fatalities as a result. This starts an arms race, now to defend against a crime you need a gun, since people comitting crimes have guns widely available.


-Mach
Unfortunately, Mach, we DO have a population that commits crimes in America. As for your second paragraph I have quoted above, you claim that an arms race between criminals and people wanting to defend themselves will occur. Have you considered that, no matter what, criminals will continue to acquire weapons? We already have weapons widely available to criminals--many of them available by illegal means, which means that we DO need weapons to defend against their's. Your claim that there will be an arms race is false. In an arms race, like the one between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, was between two nations, both driven into fear for their safety if the other should become stronger than they are. Unfortunately for your argument, the criminals are not afraid of the civilians, and are not united into their own group. When a criminal wants to rob a house in a neighborhood, they do not think: "Hmm....maybe I should research the family to make sure they don't have a firearm" or "Maybe I shouldn't do this crime...they could have a gun and kill me". They have already decided their course of action, and do not believe that they are going to occur any problems.

In closing, ask yourself this: Is it better to leave gun control as is, allowing for the small chance that someone will use a legal gun to commit a crime; or, is it better to restrict guns further and leave more citizens without a firearm to defend themselves, and allow the criminals to acquire them by their own methods? We should be pressing to prevent these illegal weapons from being acquired, rather than restricting the sale of legal ones.
__________________
--It is useless to create more laws when we cannot enforce the ones we already have.--

Last edited by akgamer0615 : 12-12-07 at 07:31 PM.
akgamer0615 is offline