should GUNS be made illegal!!???

Question

In my opinion, GUNS should definitely be made illegal in the USA!
There have been so many shootings throughout educational facilities over the past few decades and innocent lives have been taken. It is so sad...but what angers me is that nothing has changed with the American Gun Law.
If people like Cho Seung Hui werent allowed to buy a gun, then how many people would he have been able to kill with a knife? Its so ridicolous that Guns are still legal and you can just walk into a gun dealers shop and just purchase one!

answering to greed_2.0
Ask, Should all mentally insane criminals own guns?
The gunshop owner didnt know Cho Seung Hui was a mentally insane criminal so he just sold him the gun!
Any kid could just walk into a shop and purchase a gun to kill...not everyone has to be mentally insane to own a gun!

Answer 1

Absolutely NOT.

It's oft repeated and cliche', but it's also true: "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns". People who are intent on doing violence are not going to be deterred by any gun laws. Fact.

It is impossible to remove guns from the hands of every criminal. Even if we could magically make every gun in this country disappear, they would still come into this country across the border from Central America. (Just look at the drug trade). Illegal arms trade is big business in third world countries where gun ownership is tightly restricted.

I work at NASA JSC, and was there during the shooting. A co-worker (a foreign national) advanced the same simplistic argument that you do here. When I countered that it is impossible to remove guns from every crinimal, he had no other response but "don't argue with me". His mind was made up, and couldn't be bothered with facts.

FYI guns are already "illegal" on the JSC site. As a responsible law-abiding citizen and licenced gun-owner, I respect the rules and leave my gun at home. The shooter on 4/20/07 did not.

If you think that only govenments and law enforcement should possess guns, consider this: an unarmed citizenry is at the complete and total mercy of said government. There is no longer any check on the power of government. The first thing any totalitarian state does when it comes to power is to confiscate all guns from its citizens.

It's also true that when more law abiding citizens in a community own guns, the crime rate in that community goes down (google "Kennesaw, Georgia"). The cliche' that "guns make for polite society" is also true.

As for me, you'll get my gun from my cold dead hands.

Answer 2

Emotionally people like Cho are, in fact, NOT allowed to purchase handguns. So, how did he acquire them? By someone else's mistake.
And speaking of killing with a knife, remember 9/11? The terrorists took over three planes with box cutters. So, a knife can be just as effective as a firearm.
And, you canNOT just walk into a legal, legitimate gun store and buy one. Every state has a waiting period between purchase and pickup.
Also, even if guns are made illegal it would be as effective as the fact that cocaine and marijuana are illegal, I mean no one uses or gets their hands on those drugs do they, since they are illegal? If guns were made illegal, then only persons willing to break the law would have them and be able to use them. I personally have been around guns all my life and never ever fired a weapon at anyone who was not already shooting at me first. [served in Desert Shield/Storm]
And, lastly, if you want to change a law, get elected and write a bill and make it a law. Everyone is allowed to run for an elected office. Well, except for President of the US, then you have to have been born a US citizen. But, last I heard Senators and Representatives also get to make laws too, and anyone can get elected to those positions.

Amended after receiving an e-mail:
9/11 terrorists took over three not four planes. The people on the fourth plane did something another answerer mentioned: they fought back. So, maybe I should rephrase what I typed earlier to read "took over and successfully crashed into their targets with ... "

Answer 3

No.

You are asking to curtail the rights of perfectly sane and responsible adults because of the one disturbed person who may buy a gun. As horrible as all of this is...it's like punishing the whole class for one persons infractions. (I'm not trying to minimize the incident...just making a comparison about making guns illegal).

The only people who obey gun laws are responsible, law-abiding citizens. If someone wants to get a gun for an evil purpose they'll do so...with or without gun laws in place. Making guns illegal will insure that any criminal wanting to commit a crime is safe. He/she will know that the person they are attacking or robbing will not have a gun...because it's illegal.

Answer 4

It would be a better world without weapons to kill each other with but darlin you couldn't have picked a worse time in the last 100 years to try and make guns illegal in the United States.
If you hadn't noticed guns are as common as alcohol in our streets ,our countryside and yes even our schools and probably even our churches.
The number of firearms and amount of ammunition that has been purchased and stashed in the US over the last 150 years is staggering.
Drunks, Meth Freaks, Psychopaths , Gangsters, terrorists and the desperate penniless homeless are crawling out of the woodwork and if you think you would rather deal with this situation with a can of bug spray, your car keys , your finger nails and whatever rock you might get a hold of then by all means but please don't take my side arm away and the protection it provides for my life, my family, my property, and my rights in the midst of this arsenal nightmare.
No amount of police or soldiers can protect you against this social chaos, by the time they can respond the shots have already been fired, the knives have already been wielded , the club has already crushed the bone and the rape has already been completed.
Do everything possible to get the weapons out of criminally violent people? Of course, by all means, Crack down hard on gun dealers? , by all means.
But Disarm the law abiding American citizen and all you will have left is a Police state and a population left to the mercy of the most violent ,bully, gangster, psychopath, rapist, drunk, terrorist and mugger on the block all of which are immersed in a veritable sea of firearms both legal and illegal..
Freedom is a dangerous and difficult proposition and maintaining it is not always sunshine and flowers, if you regard yourself as free, and you want to remain free, at some point one must take some realistic measure to bravely defend that freedom on his or her own initiative least it be forever taken from us and if you do not or are unable to do that then God help you should you encounter someone who is set to impose his will over yours without mercy and either has the strength or weapons to do just that.
Sorry to come down so hard on you on this one and respect the good wishes and innocence from which your question arose but whether you like guns or hate them ,as I do, the ultimate hard truth of the matter is that the only viable defense against a gun IS a gun and a society entirely free of guns is a utopia beyond reach at this point in history, especially here in the US.

Answer 5

NOPE
Would that have stop Tim McVeigh.
Or the Unabomber

The best answer is teach kids not to bully and parents to take a more proactive role in their kids and not be their buddies.

Kill the idea of the 2 incomes are required to make it.
Also teach people to work out problems than run away and to use divorce as an easy way out.

Establish morals.

That will do more for crime than more laws.

Cho violated how many laws do you think a few more would have stop him.

Or the two from Columbine would have stop if they knew there were more laws.

Laws are not the answer it has to start with the person in the mirror.

Answer 6

There are volumes of Fire arms laws on the books now. It takes months to obtain the necessary permits, fingerprints and take the required courses to purchase a handgun in my state. Does anyone think for a second that a self centered, unstable person will be deterred from breaking gun laws when they have not regard for the law on any level?
The Columbine kids constructed and used gas bombs in addition to guns in their rampage, should we regulate or outlaw Propane too?
Far too little personal responsibility has been demanded by our culture for too long. This is one of the results.
When I was in Denmark, nearly every able bodied adult male had a military automatic weapon with ammunition in his home. Yet they are not sweeping the dead off the streets in every morning. Partially because every one was armed, and also because their culture has a more responsible view of freedom than we do.
It is the criminals not their methods that needs to be dealt with.

Answer 7

Do you know that every school shooting in America was done in a "gun free" zone?

I've seen people yelling for gun bans, but let's just analyze that shall we? Just how would you ban all guns from the US? Wave a magic wand and make them disappear? It would require one of two things, neither of which is very appealing...

(1) stormtroopers marching into our homes and demanding we surrender our guns...even searching our homes whether we like it or not. Of course, this wouldn't work because those that didn't want to give up their guns would have long-since hidden them.

(2) Law-abiding citizens would voluntarily give up their guns and criminals would not. And underground black market would arise...much like Prohibition...and authorities would have even harder time determining who has guns, because there would be absolutely no control. The peaceful population would now be totally helpless to protect themselves.

Interesting stat for you...for every violent crime committed by someone with a gun, 20 are averted by someone else with a gun who stops the crime. Unfortunately, the police can't be everywhere. They can only show up after the crime is over and mop up the mess.

Another stat for you...states with concealed carry laws have lower violent crime than states with gun bans...because criminals are inherently cowards and hesitate to attack someone who can defend themselves.

Answer 8

people like this break a law and kill 32 people. What on gods earth makes people think that making guns illegal will stop them from getting a gun.I cant believe a man can walk through a college campus and kill so many and not one man stands up to protect his fellow man.what kind of people are our kids growing up to be.It is a sad day when one man can do so much damage and not be stopped in a college full of our finest young healthy people that have no excuse for letting this go so far.In my opinion we should help people defend themselves and not continue this downward spiral that allows this high of a body count.

Answer 9

I don't think it would make a difference at all. If you made them illegal, the crazies and the crooks would just steal them anyway. The only poeple that wouldn't have the guns would be the victims.
I understand your feelings, and wish there was a better way to control who has them, but I'm not so sure there is anything better than we have now. We just have to enforce the current laws better.

Good luck

Answer 10

Though one would agree with your stance that guns 'kill' there are many flaws inb your rant. Cho Seung Hui was set on killing if guns had not been available then he would have gone for arson or maybe have carried through with making a bomb. Cho might have ended up killing more people if he had been denied a gun. Timothy McVey in Oklahoma City killed hundreds.

It is not the Gun it is the Culture of the Gun, the mindset of a soceity in which people are encouraged to 'settle' things with violence. Nearly 70 percent of video/cd/computer/etc games involve killing for a reward. That creates a mind set that killing is good. And then there is the 'afterlife.' Cho went to his death certain he would gain imortality & fame for whatever sick pleasure that gave Cho, Cho died knowing that his ugly mug spweing hatred would be watched over & over again by millions.

A final note - - - once upon a time a majority of people had it hammered into their brains that if they killed the consequences would be eternal damnation, burning in the fires of Hell. No more - - - that notion has been replaced by 'Jesus Lovez Ya,' all one has to do it the final seconds before blowing out their brains with a 9mm Glock is to accept Christ as one's personal savior and 'bammo-whammo' one is admitted to the Gates of Heaven.

Wouldn't it be great if Priests went back to preaching Hellfire & damnation for murder & related violent acts?

A final note there are literally millions of respectable responsible gun owners across the Globe and their right to bear arms ought to be respected.
(Arming bears is more problematical).

Peace.....