@Licurg

I thought people angry iver sacrifice giveaway were overreacting, but seriously WTF? "Let's use torture for punishment" This stupid on many levels.
1)You need to get people willing to torture others in you law system
2)You show that torture is allowed in your country
3) USA law system is focused on retribution and look how "well" it works

The death penalty increases crime and costs more money than incarceration. Firearm ownership kills people; statistically, a gun is more likely to kill you than a criminal.

Barring time travel, the idea of "punishment" is absolutely idiotic, and anyone who promotes it should feel bad. There's no "punishment" and no "justice"; there are only actions you consistently take - whatever they are - to attempt to decrease the crime rate in the future, and the success of those measures. If the best method to decrease the murder rate turns out to be giving cupcakes to convicted murderers and letting them go free, then that's what you should do. The only possible objection is political calculus, internal-affairs-wise the US is strong enough to weather any mouthbreather outrage.

Maybe I missed the posts, but I don't remember anyone out right saying guns in the US should be banned. I know I was saying somethings about how I personally am not a big gun fan, but even I didn't say anything about an actual ban. Unless you count me saying they belong in the movies. And if I am your irritation I would just mention that your country is my country, and guns aren't being exclusively criticized from the outside.

Maybe your right, maybe not, but I think there is one thing we can say for sure based on history. Pro-gun and anti-gun people are never going to agree on guns. We all could argue all week and get nowhere because we are all just making guesses about what is safer for people in the long run. And we can all agree on that much I assume. We all want things to be better than they are.

1. I'll do it. I need a job anyway, and making scum suffer AND getting paid for it would be a dream job.
2.Torture is not allowed here in Romania, at least not officially .
3.The USA law system is not focused on retribution, and they'd be much better off if it was.

Are you a distant relative of Vlad the Impaler ;P ?

I am pro Gun and pro guards in the schools and would be more than willing to sit armed in my children's school.

So only people who agree with you that guns are great and all have the right to speak? Nice.
I hope you're aware that free speech is a right granted by the same Constitution that grants you the right to bear arms. I find it rather funny how much you Americans claim to respect your Constitution and yet you always pick and choose what you like from it.

Okay, so guns have saved lives. Good for them.
OTOH, there have been about 10 thousand people killed by firearms last year i America. Many of those might have been avoided if people didn't have guns. So you tell me: are a few lives saved by gun ownership worth the many lost to it?

I don't know what effect better gun controls might have. The point is, neither do you. Can't know until we try, can we?

"unfortunate"? Really? Try tragic, senseless, horrible, but unfortunate?
This is not spilt milk, it's human lives. How would you feel if you lost someone close to you, and someone else described it as "unfortunate"?

As for the NRA suggestion about armed guards, it's simply bullshit.
Who's going to pay for those? Who's going to train them? More importantly, where are you going to find the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of trained guards that would be required to make every school and public place safe from crazy gunmen?
It's a fine solution in theory, but it's completely impossible to actually implement in practice.

See my first and second answers.


Do you want to know the real reason I object to the free ownership of guns? I suspect you don't (since apparently you can't stand the fact that people who disagree with you have the right to speak as much as you do), but I'll tell you anyway.
I'm a historian, and after reading plenty of historical documents, as well as watching the news and such, I've come to the conclusion that Hobbes was right, and that as a rule, the majority of human beings are stupid, ignorant, selfish assholes. Not just in America but everywhere.
And in my opinion, making it easier for those people to kill others by letting them have guns without any kind of control is extremely irresponsible, if not downright criminal.

Sorry but, how old are you? I hate to ask this question but you are being super uber naive, almost to the point of stupidity.

Yeah, I am. Jealous? :P

Source?

Do you see me calling for government intervention against anyone who disagrees with my support for private gun ownership? The 1st Amendment means that the US federal government cannot legally penalize a private citizen for criticizing a policy or for making a suggestion. It does not mean that I have to like everything you say. If you really think another law is going to do anything to actual violent criminals, you're sadly mistaken. Criminals prefer unarmed targets since criminals are not looking for challenges. I know enough. Private gun ownership has had strong positive effects in my country and if you did actual research, you would know that the violent crime rate in my country was declining as private gun sales rose. The term "unfortunate" is another way of describing a negative occurrence regardless of the magnitude. Congratulations for fulfilling the stereotype of a Frenchman who acts like an asshole. We already have plenty of cops in the United States. Just two of them at each school, provided the local residents approve, will help with security. Refer back to my previous examples of guns working for good instead of evil. So you're a historian? Perhaps you should research the actions of Hitler (the guy who kicked your country's ass), Stalin, Mao, and Idi Amin concerning private gun ownership. Oh wait. You would have sided with those people since you hate the "common folk" and think that the common people should be controlled like sheep and cattle.

You say that most people are stupid, selfish, and assholes yet you would put faith in government officials as if they were any better. If most people are really as bad as you say and if guns are automatically so horrible as you say, then why is it that the areas of my country which tend to have higher concentrations of gun ownership (usually suburban settings) have lower violent crime rates? Why isn't the majority of the US population out on the streets slaughtering, raping, and looting each other?

I support individual gun rights because I did real research. I studied how guns have successfully been used in defense when no other method of protection would have worked even when the criminals themselves did not have guns. I studied how weapons get smuggled into the United States and how the Obama administration distributed countless weapons to Mexican warlords providing more tools for the real criminals.

I also studied history too. Those without proper weaponry and training are less likely to defend themselves and get conquered or slaughtered. Tyrants disarm their own people just so that they can have an easier time bullying them. Most importantly, violence has existed throughout history even before the rise of firearms. More laws will not benefit the common man.

Of course you probably don't care since you hate the common people so much. I bet you probably would have welcomed National Socialism and Fascism into your country if you were around back in WWII. Many people are disgusting as in self-righteous, inconsiderate, and vile and you happen to be one of them. Congratulations.

I wasn't going to reply since it's obvious we're coming from very different perspectives and are never going to agree, at least on this, but I can't just let those pass without comment.

No the term "unfortunate" is an understatement trying to minimize something that shouldn't be. I don't know about you, but if someone called the murder of one of my friends or my family "unfortunate" (or the French equivalent) I'd get pretty angry.
Oh, and insults in a debate are the last refuge of people who don't have anything worth saying so insulting me only shows that you know you're in the wrong about this.

Nice to see you haven't even tried to answer my reasons why this would be impossible to achieve in practice. Again, if you put 2 cops at every school, you're pulling them from doing something else. So you have to hire more. And where are you going to get the money for that?
So yes, in theory, putting a cop at every corner would make everyone safe. In practice, it just can't be done.

Also, it's nice to see that you'll rant on the evils of government control of firearms, and yet are perfectly ready to let the government, local or otherwise, hire tons of people to provide "security". Does the term "police state" mean anything to you?

Wow, way to distort my words there.
Yes, I happen to think, based on historical evidence, that most people are stupid assholes. That doesn't actually mean I hate them, because quite frankly, they're not worth the time and effort of hating them.
I much prefer ignoring them and having fun doing other things, fyi.

Studying history is useless without any perspective, which you seem to lack.
The problem is, while arming the common people does work as a deterrent to tyranny, the fact is that the US government actually becoming tyrannical is pretty damn unlikely.
And not because there are a lot of American with guns but because the government becoming tyrannical would be completely contrary to the very idea of America as it is today.
And if the majority of Americans isn't out being violent, it's mostly because it's not socially acceptable to do so. A proper study of History would show you that what really changes society in the long run is ideas, not violence, which can only cause short-term (relatively speaking) changes.


I'm not even going to answer the thing about the dictators, except to refer you to this.
Well done for losing the argument. And so I'm done.

I keep seeing these tragedies happen. A nation is shocked, then talk moves to whether firearms should be banned or not. People come out & say yes, others say no. The cycle always continues.
But I've got to wonder, what would American society be like if they didn't achieve independence through war? Would stuff like this still happen?
Oh & before anyone tries, no the killer couldn't have done this with any other weapon. If you want to argue otherwise, try charging someone with a gun whilst wielding a knife.

Where I went to High School they had a guard on duty after someone was shot several years before. I was OK with it as having someone there to do something in an emergency is better than not having one. Would the guard at his office stop a shooting in a class room if someone managed to sneak a gun in? No. Would the guard be able to go there and take out the shooter before he could go to another class room and kill more people? I think the chance of that was good enough to have one around. The guard would make it far quicker than the police would. I see guards/security already at the mall, sporting events, and government buildings.