I know why you can't draw the conclusion, given the obstacles placed in the way of felons possessing arms, that there are thus more guns for YOU to use on the criminals. With due care, of course.

But I do understand why you CANNOT THINK THAT.

You are a fully florid hoplophobe, and without professional help, you shall never have a rational view of armed defense of self or other. You shall remain unable to practice either, which would seem morally insupportable -- though too, I just hate bullies, criminals being a prime example of bullying. You need to adjust to your urge to kill, and release and exhaust from you the buried rages and fears that give you that urge.

In a nutshell, Spexx needs therapy, target practice, and tactical practice, along with introduction to tactical shooting games as a means of directly discharging his urge to kill. Until he gets this help, his moral position remains inferior to those of MaggieL, rkzenrage, and Urbane Guerrilla.

In my opinion, and this opinion is derived from my upbringing and lifestyle; there's a time and place for weapons. I'm not unfamiliar with guns. Have fired many. Even into animals on occasion, so I'm not some liberal whiner who has no concept of the point of guns.

I like the fact that people in Australia are not allowed to carry weapons - of any kind (including knives) - legally in public. I don't believe that if all people are armed you're lowering the chances of gun related violence. I don't believe you're increasing it either although accessability has to make it easier for crimes of passion to be more deadly and also for children - the original topic of this thread - to access adult's weapons.

It's not the responsibility of the general public to protect the rest of the general public. It's the responsibility of police and other law enforcement agencies to do to. Obviously there can't always be a cop around, and even if there is people will still shoot people.

I don't think liberals or conservatives are to blame for school shootings. I think the people that committed the crimes are responsible.

Reread that paragraph, Aliantha: can you not see how the last sentence shoots the first two down? (I should smile!)

We in this Republic take precisely the opposite view -- that it is part of a citizen's lawful militia powers, which rise out of his being an adult human, and which are to some degree demanded by this Republic's laws (Sec's 310-311 USC, which establish the legal existence of the US Militia, all as part of the concept of a citizen Army), and that a citizen of a Republic has a responsibility to defend against the society-destroying acts of any criminals, without any regard to their degree of violence. While it is helpful to have a professional, sworn police force to do this work well, it is not at all bad to have the amateurs hold the line until the pros can reinforce them. Obviously there can't always be a cop around -- there is NO moral requirement to be helpless before armed agression in that circumstance. Do not ask that we not shoot back. We have wives and children to keep alive, woman! Some of us have husbands!

ahuh...and you live in a country with one of the highest crime rates in the world. No wonder you want to be armed.

OK, we've at least actually gotten you to load the page. This is progress.

Now let's refine the skill to actually include reading.

This is called the World Wide Web. Let me explain how it works.
Those blue headings with the underscores? They are called "unvisited links".

In this case, when you click on them they each take you a pages containing a different section of Chapter 5 (General Principles of Justification) of Title 18(Crimes and Offenses), which is the law in question. It's all there.

The ones you're looking for look like this:

Taken together, sections 500 through 510 constitute Chapter 5 of Title 18, which is the actual law on justification of the use of deadly force in the Commonwealth.

Now go back to the page and read, and do try to restrain your impulse to click the mouse spasmodically in random locations without actually reading the page and then returning here in triumph claiming that the link is bogus.

You would, too, and probably do a most creditable job of it, given your experience.

It's also a matter of record that for some years, Scotland's murder rate (murders/100K of population is the usual measure) under UK gun laws, ran well over the overall US rate of 4.8/100K/year. The US murder rate is not at all uniform, either. All the more rural states have murder rates that look like England's. What brings the US's rate up to its sub-Scotland level is the murder rate of a few ghetto-ridden urban areas: the inner cities of New York City, Washington DC, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles.

And you shouldn't be speaking of "crime" generally if it's the murder rate you are addressing. We citizens save, year in and year out, about 2.5 billion dollars US, by the mere act of sticking guns into criminal faces. Don't ask us to lose 2.5B just to satisfy your notions of propriety, Aliantha!

I wasn't addressing the murder rate. If I was addressing that then I would have said so. I was addressing the crime rate UG, that's why I said, crime rate.

As to the saving 2.5B. Presumably the goods will be remaining in the US after they're stolen anyway, so you'll still have them (if stopping robberies by threatening theives with a gun is what you were trying to imply). They've just been reappropriated. lol

OK...sorry, I shouldn't have laughed. This is a serious subject, but you just crack me up sometimes UG. ;)

That's 2.5B of wrongs not committed, Ali -- nothing to sneeze at, is it?

We can at least estimate an economic value to self defense. I don't think that's been even semiseriously attempted before.

No, it's wonderful UG. I'm very pleased your happy. :)

Erm... you're very pleased my happy? Quick, edit! ;)

you're then. I'm sorry I can't type everything perfectly every time. ;)

If my Backspace key ever breaks, I might as well be typing encrypted. :rolleye:

lol...well I'm pretty sure most of us use that facility fairly regularly, except maybe the perfect ones among us.

Peer pressure is not a drug.
As for testosterone, what?.... are the girls wearing patches? They are just as violent in the Gangsta culture although the usually would rather cut than shoot. :eyebrow: