What is your position on banning the ownership of guns altogether?

Answer 1

We don't need more gun laws. We NEED to enforce the ones we already have.

Answer 2

We should ban the people who shouldn't have guns. Gun control starts with taking them away from those who shouldn't ever have them. Maybe an IQ test and renewable lisence for owning a handgun or firearm.Many people shouldn't drive either. These people are just as deadly on the road. The penalties need to be stronger especially towards the gun dealers. What will we do when so many immigrants decide to take up arms for their own freedom? Will this be the next Mexican War? We haven't been able to stop the drug use or drug smuggling. How can you stop the illegal gun trade too? Free drugs and Free guns? Hmmmm.

Answer 3

I do not believe in the total "banning" of gun ownership, but I do believe in gun control. In other words, I believe there should be societal and legal controls in place to restrict gun ownership so weirdos, criminals, suspected terrorists, militants, and the severely mentally challenged would have a difficult time procuring a gun. On the other hand, upright taxpaying citizens who have a clean record should have the right to own a gun, and even have a concealed weapon permit.

In short, I'm all in favor of keeping guns out of the wrong hands, and for that reason, I am in favor of gun control.

Answer 4

I have no opinion, and can see the value of both positions.

People are most effective killing each other with guns.
People do not need guns to kill each other.

Criminals usually have guns when they commit crimes.
Hunters, collectors & hobbyists also usually have guns & they do not usually commit crimes with them.

Historically people have defended themselves from oppressors with their own weapons.
Today, oppression comes through illegal surveillance, hidden taxes, loss of freedoms, unjust laws, media manipulation, electronic voting machines, things much more insidious & less in your face obvious than in the past. Fighting these sorts of things takes alot more intelligence & less grade B movie type heroics with brave manly one-liners and bullets flying by.

If there is anything to this debate that would lead me to fall on one side more than another, it might be the atrocious homicide rate in the US - higher than any other "first world " country, almost entirely achieved with gunfire from handheld weapons.

But then I think of Rwanda, where the mass murder of thousands was carried out only with machetes.

So, I cannot come to a conclusion one way or another.

;-)

Answer 5

Why on earth would anyone want to ban gun ownership? Banning ownership of guns would mean only criminals would have the guns...how does that make sense?

Answer 6

Governments, no matter how seemingly benign, are always capable of becoming despotic, tyrannical, dictatorial, oppressive, and worse. Even democracies. An armed citizenry can be all that stands between the people and dictatorship. It is the only thing that can keep government on the straight and narrow.

What about criminals? you ask. Why focus on government, which is there to protect us from criminals, instead of focusing on the criminals themselves? Aren't criminals the real threat? After all, WE are the government, aren't we?

Such naivete. I hope we won't have to learn the hard way; but I fear we might. And it won't be the first time.

And what about accidents? you ask. What about all the innocent children who will kill each other or be kiiled accidentally when one or more of them find guns and ammunition that have been incompletely or incompetently hidden?

As much as we love our children, we owe it to all of the succeeding generations of Americans not to fritter away our liberty, and theirs in the process, or allow it to be taken from us.

We know that as many as 50,000 lives will be lost each year in automobile accidents on American highways, but that doesn't cause us to agonize over whether we should ban and confiscate all automobiles.

If we don't believe that the preservation of our liberty, and of the liberty of our children and grandchildren and of all Americans yet to be born, is more important than the preservation of our lives, then the loss of our liberty and that of succeeding generations is only a matter of time. How could we explain that to the countless members of the greatest generations that preceded us and made the supreme sacrifice for us and our children and our children's children and so on?

Once we ban all guns, we give the government the right to disarm us and keep us defenseless except to the extent government provides for our protection -- a task that it performed very imperfectly in the past, when its task was merely to protect us from criminals and, more recently, terrorists, and certainly cannot be relied upon to perform any more effectively in the future when it might be called upon to protect us from criminals and terrorists and also from government itself.

It's like that sticker that used to appear on the bumpers of chariots in ancient Rome:

"*** ["see-you-emm," pronounced "come," is Latin for "when," so don't bleep it as you did with three asterisks a minute ago, you mechanical cretin] catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt."

["When catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will have catapults!"]

"Eamus, O Catuli!"

["Let's go, Cubs!"]

Answer 7

It is our Constitutional right to own guns, from the early days when our country was formed and it was actually so that the citizens of this country could protect themselves from the government because they had just earned their freedom.
I think we still should have the right to own guns, and through laws we can only own certain types of guns as it is. The shootings at schools have been horrible, and there have been innocent people killed because of guns, but if we didn't have the right to own them...criminals and thugs would get them and we couldn't protect ourselves.

Answer 8

Handguns were banned in England a few years ago, to stop criminals getting hold of them.
A lot of gun clubs went bust, and gun fanatics were not pleased.
We now have record gun offences, and the number of hand guns owned by criminals in the UK has quadrupled.
So banning will not stop anything, it will just force it underground!

Answer 9

See you can't ban guns from criminals. In those countries where guns are banned, the criminals have free hand. Let me quote Paksitan. In Karachi guns are not possessed, and there is a free hand for terrorsit organizations e.g. MQM which is fully sponsored by CIA and MI 5. It kills innocent people and shcolars. In Northern Pakistan where people have guns there are no such crimes. Keeping guns is the most fundamental right of human being to defend themselves. You can't trust Gvoernment and UNO. When Bosnian Muslims in so called safe heavens deposited their guns on assurance of UNO all their young men were mass murdered. So in order to keep your liberty alive and safe we must have guns, of coruse not to kill innocent but to defend ourselves It is the criminals like TIME and NEWSWEEK and global terrorists and underground drug and crime mafia who would like to snatch the gun from you so that their criminals can come and kill you! America is Best in this regard and it is the freest country but only after Afghanistan. See Afghansitan had never been slave and you will see that they will again defeat all foreign occupiers thanks to their superb faith and guns!

Answer 10

Even if you ban guns people will find a way to sneak it in. There's always loopholes people can figure out. Weapons are wide spread nowadays so it may be hard to ban them. I believe in tougher punishments for gun related crimes. As well as more surveillance cameras that contact police if a gun shot is censored nearby.

Answer 11

Well the idea is just ridiculous. I am pro-guns and against progressive liberals who feel that they need to modify every aspect of the constitution so they feel that the world is a better place.