(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Living in England I've grown up in a country where you quite simply by and large aren't allowed guns, so gun crime itself is as far as I'm aware a comparative rarity to say in America. At the very least that's the impression I get. And I like that, because I feel like far too often with everybody owning a gun somebody would do something stupid in the midst of an argument or at the lowest of lows in depression.

On the other hand, I have an enormous distrust for 'big government' and looking at various things I think owning a gun would be a nice security to perhaps allay those fears.

I shan't go beyond that in the OP. Reply away(but preferably don't threaten me with your legally owned pistol).

I live in Japan where the cause of death is mostly old age. There has been gun related murders but only maybe 50 in the past 70 yrs. Do there need to be more guns to make it safer?

Welcome to disagree with me , I respect your opinion on the subject.

You are right it's wrong to single out just guns which is why I talked about mental health spending.
I would be living in a fantasy world if I was thinking guns was the only problem causing this. It's not it comes down high inequality , bad mental health care and loose checks for buying guns.

High inequality is a cause of many social problems it also a problem in the fact it holds your economy back too. Shocking how much of a damaging effect it has and worrying at the same time.
The problem is how do you deal with this do you let the markets decide or have government programs. The answer is the US needs to decide how it wants to deal with it.
US and many other nations is not ready for that debate, yet but it can do something on the following. Won't fix the problem but should help close some of the gaps in the net.

Why in the US no mental health check when you are buying a gun.
Why at gun shows no background checks are made.
Couple things when buying a gun the US could change which should help along with closing some loop holes.

Silly to just make gun laws harsher without looking at the rest of the picture. Think we can agree on that, it would be a hollow victory if that did happen.

In my views on gun control, I believe that you should be allowed to bear arms. I live in Ireland, where we have some of the most strict gun control laws in the world, and my father own's a gun purely for hunting purposes and target shooting. My Dad had to go through mental tests, have a gun storage safe built in the wall of our house and re-register it every two years along with carrying it in a secure case to and from hunting grounds and ranges. With the recent tragedy involving Adam Lanza, it probably could have been avoided if a secure gun storage safe was built into his home where the guns were kept. American's should have guns, just limit the amount of them and have secure storage and mental checks done before purchasing.

Tough to disagree with you when everything you have stated seems logical......well put!

Yea lets all just give up guns and let the law and criminals only wield weapons... NO

LOL there is some genius in those words and I am certainly pro gun but I also believe with that privilege also comes responsibilities......the short of it is, if we completely outlaw firearms than your post would be entirely true!

Bad guys will always get guns, I agree. Mentally unstable people however? Likely not. That's one potential issue source solved by outlawing gun ownership. Police et cetera will always have guns to protect you with, so it's not like the country will get taken over by pirates.

Also I've read that it's ludicrously rare for anyone with a concealed weapon to have been around when needed.

Couldn't agree more about the mentally unstable comment however it's usually the criminals who are extremely intelligent that cause the most damage and would easily pass any mental health evaluation.....but it would also save lives with a mental health eval for quite a few scenarios which is large step in the right direction in decreasing gun crime.

On your other point......it's rare because of the rarity in itself for people to be able to carry a concealed weapon. It kind of goes hand in hand.

Always glad to hear your point of view!

I just look at it like this... the only people who are going to follow the laws in place are the law abiding citizens. And it's usually the ones who break the laws to begin with who give firearms a bad reputation. But living in America we have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Getting into what has been circulating in America... the government wants to ban assault rifles such as the AR-15 and AK-47. I don't know too much about AKs because they're inaccurate and have a heavy bolt. But AR-15s I know a good bit about mainly because I've been around them since I was 10. I hate getting too technical but I digress so I will just for this post...

Anyone who owns an AR-15 knows that it is chambered in .223 Remington or 5.56 NATO. Same caliber minus the fact that the 5.56 has a thicker case(brass), less sensitive primer, require more leade and tends to jam a lot. That's a typical caliber of most rifles you see on the market today. However it's attacked because it black and made for being abused in combat situations.. i.e dirt, dust, mud and water. When it all boils down the gun was designed to be durable for war, self defense and even hunting. Now back to what I said about the caliber that the gun is chambered in... it's a common round and most guns use it. An example and a great one at that would be a Ruger Mini-14. It looks nothing like your AR-15. Minus the fact that it is chambered in the same caliber and can actually shoot 5.56 NATO without jamming.

Below are some photos of the two guns.. notice the extreme differences.

Colt AR-15[/i]
You must login or register to view this content.

Ruger Mini-14[/i]
You must login or register to view this content.

From those two images I'm sure you observed how different but yet how similar they are. The whole approach to the banning "assault weapons" is just so broad it's stupid. Plus not all AR-15s are chambered in the standard .233 you can see some that have been converted to .22lr and/or .9mm just because it's more economic to shoot. And an added bonus view these two photos and see if you can see the difference :p

You must login or register to view this content.

And of course owning a gun in America you have to pass a background check and if you display any mental illness the sale of the gun will be terminated by the dealer. (At least here in Florida)

Please note that you might have to open the images in a new tab just to see them at the normal resolution. This might be caused by the new layout or just because of the spoilers...