Gun Control
April 18th, 2007 - 8:33 am
Did you know that Japan has the strictest gun control laws of any democratic country on the planet? Odd then that the mayor of Nagasaki was recently shot dead by a handgun (illegal in Japan).
I mention this only because the Virginia Tech shooting has started all the gun control banter again with people insisting if handguns (if not all guns) were banned, things like that wouldn’t happen. Yeah, well … no guarantee of that. It seems the Yakuza doesn’t have any problems getting around a handgun ban and strict regulations on gun ownership. Neither would the criminals (and probably the crazies) in the USA either.
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4 Responses to “Gun Control”
Of course tough legislation says nothing about tough enforcement.
For the record I’m of the opinion that gun laws are one thing you really don’t want to mess around with. It is much harder to enforce and to convince people to comply with laws that keep changing, if your legislation on the subject works okay then leave it be since if you make unnecessary changes you know the next government will try to outdo that and the next…
How much more likely is a concerned citizen to report a weapon that has always been illegal compared to a weapon that was recently legal or that they think will be legal soon? Just one of the ways that knee-jerking on the subject makes things worse.
Agree totally.
Also, I don’t think any measure of licensing, testing or what have you would have prevented the Virginia shooting. It’s not like you can just walk into Walmart and buy a gun, though many people seem to think it’s that easy. The kid passed teh background checks. Even if a license or gun training had been required, I don’t doubt he would have passed that too.
And outright banning handguns? Dream on. If I had a handgun, even being the law abiding person I am, if they suddenly banned them and wanted to confiscate them all, I don’t know that I would turn mine in so readily … and I doubt I would be in the minority.
Exactly. The problems are caused when you keep messing people around with ever-changing laws.
Over here, if they suddenly legalised handguns in public there would be no end to the disturbances as people with no personal experience of what can go wrong start seeing them as toys. People in heated arguments will shoot at empty space forgetting ricochets and/or gravity. Someone will inevitably be arrested for juggling loaded handguns in a crowded street. In the US these people have either learned the hard way or darwinated, over here they’re still around.
Outside of warzones I cannot see any situation where sudden changes in gun laws can solve more problems than they cause in the first 20 years.
If they suddenly outlawed handguns (or all personal firearms), the one thing I can tell you is there would still be criminals outside my door and walking the streets of my city who own firearms and will use them in the same ways they are using them now. They wouldn’t just hand them over and there is no way to go out and round them all up, because unlike a person who wants a legal firearm, who goes and fills out the paperwork and waits and jumps through hoops, criminals are using guns that have been on the black market so long they don’t exist in databases or filing cabinets. Changing gun ownership laws wouldn’t change the reality of the guns that are out there doing harm except “maybe” in the rare cases where some nut-job goes off like in Virginia.
And … having been raised a country girl, I can tell you that guns are handy tools. Not so much in urban areas, but out in the sticks, of which the USA still has quite a bit, guns are downright useful. People living in the comfort of cities forget that more often than not. You’d have a hard, hard time getting ranchers and other country dwellers to willingly give up their guns … because they actually use them for things other than killing people.