i dont understand the reason for hand guns and assault rifles outside of military use?

Question

hunting rifles im ok with but hand guns and assault rifles are made to kill people. if we stopped making those available to the public i think gun violence would go down. no one is going to walk down the street with a 3 foot manual rifle.

Answer 1

They are fun....you ever go to town with a 240b?

honest answer

Answer 2

First off, most good hunters carry a handgun "just in case". If you do not take the animal down completely with a perfect shot, you either have to end their misery or let them suffer. A handgun is quicker. To me, that makes it more humane.
I enjoy target shooting with both a handgun, an AR-15, which is similar to the M-16 that the military carries, which let me tell you is no assault rifle. Although the military edition does have the ability to fire off rounds in bursts, it is nothing like a SAW or gernade launcher, which, last time I checked were not available to the public.
Either way M-16's are not for public use.
Gun violence is the type of violence that is most publicized. Lets look at other types, like domestic, or just plain old high school and bar fights.
There is more behind the issue than just the type of weapons that are available.

Answer 3

Assault rifles are really just a collectors thing. The Assault rifle myth is nothing but a bunch of bull, when the Assault rifle ban was put in place assault rifles were used in 1 half of 1 percent of all murders. Hand guns are what causes violence. Typically low caliber hand guns that are made cheaply (so called saturday night specials).

As far as gun violence going down, it might if you completely outlawed ALL guns like in Britain. But when that happened, stabbing rates just went up. Personally I'd rather be shot than "glassed" as they say in the UK (where they break a beer bottle and stab you in the eye).

Answer 4

Because liberals think that "assault weapons" are more deadly. The fact is that a .45 acp handgun with a 10 round clip is just as deadly. There's no bullet proof vest that can stop that and it's just as easy to pop in another clip and keep going. Assault rifles (the proper term) are no more or less deadly than any other gun. A .22 revolver will still kill you in one shot. Only someone who has no experience with guns follow that kind of logic.

Answer 5

The reasons are as follows:

1. Self defense
As a private person, I have the right of self defense and the right to own items to ensure my defense.
2. Political defense
As a citizen of this country, I have the right to defend myself against a government that decides it is going to ignore the wishes of its constituents as a whole.

People call both subjects the result of paranoia, but the number of times this has been necessary in the past thirty years, much less all of history, is staggering.

I have been robbed at gunpoint three times, shot at twice, and stabbed once. During one of my robberies I was held to the ground with a gun to the back of my head while I was told to beg for my life and assured that I was going to die.

Have we had a psycho government in the USA? Nope...but LBJ almost tried an executive takeover and threatened to use the military to prevent Congress and the Supreme Court from gathering to render his actions illegal.

Have there been otherwise stable and modern governments that have failed? Yup. Bosnia was stable enough at one point that it hosted the Olympics. Lebanon was the rich man's playground until things broke down due to terrorism.

So - this is not 'paranoia' - this is a rational understanding that things can happen that require significant items of self defense. I carry a gun with me wherever I go and will do so as long as I can. Further - I have never hurt anyone with a firearm and would only do so under exigent circumstances.

-Bart

Answer 6

No. But people are going to walk down the street with a hand gun.

Do you think people should only be able to protect themselves with hunting rifles?

Answer 7

Have you ever tried to defend yourself with a hunting rifle? Of course guns CAN kill people. Just ask any of the thousands of Americans who have saved their own lives by employing lethal force. You can give up your handgun if you want to, but I'm not willing to wait 3 minutes for the police to get here if some wacko breaks my door down.

"If guns kill people, then spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat!"

Answer 8

A) The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. The hunting angle is just a red herring.

B) I have the natural right to defend my life in any way I see fit, including but not limited to any firearm I choose to use.

C) If handguns are made to kill people, why do police carry them? They enforce the law; they don't carry out sentences. The answer, of course, is that they carry them to defend themselves. Why are their lives more valuable than mine or yours?

Answer 9

You don't understand because you don't own guns, do not sport shoot and probably do not hunt. I am a gun owner but not as radical as most. I can understand your point of view, even though I disagree with you. Most gun owners can't. I see no reason for foot long knives, swords, or daggers in my life. I suggest you move to Massachusetts where they have tougher gun laws. And good luck.

Answer 10

If handguns were unavailable to the public, then only the criminals would have them. They would get them even if it were illegal to have them, see.
So, everyone else can have them for self-defense. There is a farmer in jail in England because he shot an armed robber, on the farmer's own property!

My bottom line; It is our contitutional right to leep and bear arms. To say we can't have them is like saying we can't have freedom of press, speech or religion. Since guns are gong to be around anyway, I'd rather be armed, than be a victim.

Answer 11

"5x more people are killed in car accidents in the US every year than in shooting accidents. Why don't we stop making cars?"

Because cars are not soley instruments of death. And I'm sure a significantly smaller portion of Americans own guns than own cars- the numbers are hardly proportionately comparable.

If you wanted a more usefull statistic how many violent crimes are commited a year with a car in comparison to guns? Not as many, im sure. How many total deaths result from not only shooting accidents but murders? You didn't mention that.

Now, I dont really like the idea of legalized guns. Virtually ANYONE who wants to get one, can(Legally or illegaly- liscense or no). With guns available to everyone, nothing stops a nut from getting a gun and going to his college and killing 30 people.

I concede that if no one was allowed to legally own a gun Americans would be defenseless from violent criminals, or say violent government oppression. Those who would owns guns would do so illegally, and therefore would use them only illegally. Though I say that, there is abolutely NO REASON an average citizen should be allowed to own a automatic or semi-automatic weapon.

But, I also must say that for any potential benfit a gun has, as a instrument used only to injure or kill, it does far more harm than good. And I'm sure in the days the constitution was drafted large groups of citizens didn't use their guns to kill each other for turf, or payback. And im sure even less used their muskets to rob convenience stores. The current stance needs ethinking and modernizing