HSX Forum

TVStocks, MusicStocks and Life

Reply Topic List All Forums

report abuse

I prefer the freedom from being potentially threatened with a gun.

Posted by: Jane_Citizen on Aug 07, 20:27 in response to accountant_4_Jesus' post Ok, I'll try to respond to all of your comments:

That is more important to me than the freedom to potentially threaten someone else with one.

The social contract requires all sorts of little compromises to our personal 'freedom' in order that we have a functional society. Unless one believes that everything should be permitted in the name of freedom, then one agrees that there should be some controls. The disagreement surely is as to where that line should be drawn. Personally, I would draw the line where a broad social benefit to x policy can be shown; I can't see the broad social benefit to having easy access to weapons. I can see the broad social benefit of having a society largely free from guns, though. Particularly if you believe that violent crime is on the rise.

http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/news/news/2006/Dec/061214.php

I'm quite happy to have a functional police force as we (largely) do in Australia. These are people that are paid to enforce the laws that we as citizens have elected representatives to enact on our behalf. If we don't like the way they're doing it, we vote out those policy-makers and elect people who will make the laws we want. Police will then enforce those laws. That's not a police state, that's an organised function of our democratic state. No-one talks about a police state when the cops help catch a mugger or a violent criminal.

I'm happy to live somewhere that I feel, by and large, that most strangers are decent people who can be trusted. I don't need to arm myself against them, and in turn, I don't want them to arm themselves against me.

I also live in the middle of a city where I don't need to, I don't know, put an animal I've just hit with the ute out of its misery. That's a totally different thing.

For those people who were arguing in favour of gun control laws, take a look at this (hopefully it works): accountant_4_Jesus Aug 07, 00:16

You live in Australia right? Homicide rates by firearm have gone down since their 1996 gun law. {nm} Antibody Aug 07, 10:02

Nutjobs,lunatics and the determined dishonest will always find a way to get weapons {nm} blaze223 Aug 07, 10:12

Everyone's innocent until they commit a crime. That isn't even logical. Jane_Citizen Aug 07, 13:21

That quote is scary. People with strange personality traits can be prevented can be discriminated upon? {nm} elchan Aug 07, 14:19

No, the point is that they can't. So you don't know which person is necessarily going to be the one who (cont) Jane_Citizen Aug 07, 22:51

I'm in the process of getting my FOID Card wroberson Aug 08, 01:45

I believe we need to control what kind of weapons should be so easily accessible. However, I'm not for gun control in general. elchan Aug 07, 14:21

Ok, I'll try to respond to all of your comments: accountant_4_Jesus Aug 07, 16:11

Actually they have laws against some kinds of cars. They don't allow spikes on your wheel hub caps, and battering rams on your bumper. elchan Aug 07, 19:38

I prefer the freedom from being potentially threatened with a gun. Jane_Citizen Aug 07, 20:27

Chicago has very strict laws against handguns. They sound really safe from being potentially threatened with a gun. {nm} Tanker Aug 08, 15:13