Quote from: EllieM on March 19, 2014, 04:15:46 PM
My best argument: Kennesaw GA.
I know this is a very contentious issue. I know people are dying. All I am saying is that it won't stop because of some laws. I can't prescribe for the US, the culture is different there than here in the Dominion of Canada. I don't know what the answer is, or even if there is an answer, but I would be very cautious about relinquishing your freedom for some imagined sense of security. Your own Ben Franklin had something to say about that. Ok, I'm done here, I don't want this to deteriorate into a silly divisive argument so I politely withdraw.
Yeah well speaking from a country where all firearms are pretty darn prohibited (Finland), I just read from news less than 30min ago how there has once again been shooting in one small town nearby, thankfully once again nobody's hit but yeah, laws don't do anything to prevent those.
Though we don't really have gun violence like many other country and we don't have real "gangs" either... But we got these small groups of say for, Gypsy families who are sometimes arguing with another gypsy families in some gas station in the middle of nowhere.. Or.. immigrants arguing against "pro-finnish" (practically racists) people after having a lil too much alcohol. Illegal firearms are many especially among immigrants and very easy to get since Russia, baltic states, eastern europe are quite near.
Here using firearms is always a huge thing in media, big headlines "SHOOTING IN TOWN SQUARE" and luckily here people rarely shoot to kill - to wound, maybe, but it's rare to read about coldblooded murders. Usually it's some small groups of people having an argument after drinking too much and then someone draws a handgun and shoots a couple of shots to the air and everyone runs off. Those incidents happens at least once in a month, I haven't been really following, but usually there is one headline about use of illegal firearms at least once in every month in the newspapers. This is what's going on in our city area. On countryside there is lots of old WW2 era weapons still owned by people, we've very strong "Pro-Finland" attitude and patriotism in the countryside so people who had relatives fighting against the Soviet Union back then value those old guns as a trophies even today, maybe 25% of them are licensed, many are hidden by old veterans themselves "just in case the commies come back" (it's not unusual here that somebody's grandfather has an old submachine gun in his attic "just in case I still need it". Soldiers during the war also made many caches to the forests etc in case the country ever gets invaded and they'd have had to start guerrilla warfare and those caches are still sometimes found.
Yet, we have almost zero tolerance for legal firearms today. All legal firearms are licensed, to get a permission to own a legal firearm here you have to have a "valid" reason to begin with. These are target shooting and hunting almost exclusively. Or business/collecting. Self defense is not a valid reason. For target shooting, you've to be able to prove that you have practiced for at least 2 years, once in a month (with rented equipment from the local ranges), you've clear criminal record, no history of mental illness, many other criterias and finally you'll be interviewed by two different police officers who will give a verdict whether or not they -feel- like you could be trusted with a type of firearm you're trying to get (they both have to agree, if either of them doesn't - no license.) or whether you should be given a license to acquire a different one, say for, if you're trying to get 7,62 AK variant as a first rifle for target shooting they will almost definitely turn you down and maybe, just maybe, give you a license to acquire .22LR for "starting your hobby". Sometimes if they just don't -feel- that you're trustworthy enough, they'll just drop your applications altogether and tell you that they are sorry but you do not meet the requirements to possess a firearm in this land of free people.
Other beautiful laws here state that we do not have carrying licenses at all. You're only allowed to carry a firearm in public when you're on your way to the range or taking it for the repair or for a potentional buyer pretty much. And even then it must be fully concealed at all times, safety on, have empty chamber, no magazine attached, no cartridges in (de-attached) magazine, the de-attached magazine must be in different container than the firearm itself (like, firearm in it's own case on your back and magazines and bullets in your handbag, this is for the hypothetical
"if someone figures you're carrying a rifle and steals it, he can't shoot it 'cause it doesn't have bullets" situation)
We've unfortunately seen a few mass shootings in the past few years which have tightened the gun legislation and attitudes of the police officers in handling over the licenses since they think that is the way to prevent those from happening, even if in all the three cases the persons who went into shooting rampage had acquired their guns 100% legally, all done by the books, even practiced in local ranges and were a members of our shooting organizations, so there wouldn't really be any way to stop them from doing what they did with more strict regulations. In followup of those incidents the new licenses given for handguns have dropped to almost zero in past two years, police has now taken the attitude that nobody needs to own a handgun because clearly long guns are less effective in their mindset. (two of the three mass shootings were committed by using .22LR pistols, one with a hunting rifle, and now they are saying that they want to prohibit every semi-auto handgun, especially those
"tactical scary looking pistols" that
"shoot unnecessary powerful cartridges" because
"no sport shooter ever needs semi-auto or more than 3 rounds in pistol magazine" so yeah, they don't even know what they are talking about.)
So hold on to your second amendment. I'd very much like to get shoot with long guns again, but due to our laws I practically cannot get my own and shooting with a rented guns for 60min (for a high pricetag) is just.. meh. I'd spend half of the time adjusting sights every darn time before I'd even get to the actual practicing.
EDIT: Forget to mention, hunter gets it easy here if living outside the city areas. They only need to present a valid hunting license to the police to get regular shotgun (pump-action ones are prohibited totally) or even .308, depending of which type of game they are hunting if the two officers just agree and criminal records etc are clear. Officers may sometimes do changes to caliber with these too, if one is trying to get "too powerful" rifle for small game hunting for example, they'll just give a license for "more suitable" gun instead. AK-variants and AR-15 etc are no-no for hunting here too, it's got to be bolt-action rifle pretty much.
