Checks to make sure we're on the political thread ... yep ... Right
It is an undeniable fact (at least, I've never seen anyone deny it convincingly) that anyone who purposely acquires a gun, or who decides to keep one that comes into his possession, contemplates killing.
Apart from the "self-defence" defence, in civilised countries, only the government has the right of life or death over its citizens. In the much more civilised countries, governments will give up that right. Self-defence is the use of minimum force sufficient to save your own life or that of another, which must be under real and immediate threat (not "possible" or "eventual" threat, for then you can take other avoiding actions).
For most intents and purposes, if you don't happen to be carrying your gun at the time (and why would you be?), but you have time to (say) go upstairs to find it before confronting the "threat", you are not going to satisfy the "imminent threat" requirement. If the threat was "imminent" you would already be dead. If you had time to get your gun, load it, and kill your assailant, you murdered him in all probability.
Gun are killing machines. They have no other purpose or function. If you have a gun, and you are not a frivolous person, then you are an actual or intending killer. Target practice is just to improve your killing efficiency, even if you dress it up as sport. There is nothing good about killing - even if the person you kill is subhuman by your criteria. All guns do is raise the stakes. In a confrontation where no-one is armed, no-one is likely to get seriously hurt. In a confrontation where one person has a knife, the chances of death or injury resulting are greater, but not certain. Most likely the unarmed person will comply, and (in a mugging, for example) loose a watch, a mobile phone, or his wallet, but keep his life and his body whole, or (in a sexual assault) be raped.
... carrying knives without good reason should be made illegal ...
In answer to the first post, the woman who submits to rape is infinitely superior to the woman who attempts to kill her attacker. Chances are she will survive to take her revenge later. The chances are also that the attacker will kill any woman who attempts to find her weapon, make it ready, point and fire. Usually she will die long before she has the opportunity to kill him.
A confrontation where one person is armed with a gun is likely to have the same outcome as the same situation where a knife is involved. Generally speaking, people don't kill without cause - not even Americans!
A confrontation where both sides are armed is going to have an uneasy climb-down by one side or the other - and it will be the most sensible person who gives in, not necessarily the one who is "in the right". In this instance stupidity wins. Which of you pro-gun advocates is willing to admit to such stupidity?
Alternatively - and just as stupidly - the outcome will be the death (or injury if you are lucky) of one side or the other, as both sides fire (probably, in the confusion, randomly). Again, victory will not necessarily go to the righteous, for who could be righteous in a gunfight that both sides have deliberately entered into and, no doubt, contemplated the outcome, or at least, an outcome?
OK - I will accept that some people, even in the States, really do hunt for survival. They can justify their guns. But people who kill for recreation? How despicable is that?
I reject absolutely the argument that, because a person is committing a crime, and if provoked, is capable of committing a worse one, must be dispatched summarily. That's mob law at best. A thief does not deserve to die at the hands of an American vigilante any more than he deserves to be mutilated on the orders of a Sharia court.
Death is, of course, irrevocable, whereas a miscarriage of justice by a Sharia court can be compensated for by payment of compensation, or a term of imprisonment wrongfully imposed by a western court can be made up for similarly. But if you kill an innocent visitor, or a passer by, how can you make up for that?
Still worse, if your child finds your gun and shows it to his friend, and one of them innocently shoots the other, how would you cope? Could you bury your child knowing you were responsible for its death - or would you rationalise it by saying it's the cost of an imprtant right? Could you attend your neighbour's child's funeral - assuming you were allowed to?
In the UK, we have relatively few incidents where someone "freaks out" and goes on a killing spree. (I write this just a few days after British police killed a person suspected of having a gun and intending to go to an important visitor attraction. He was killed by armed police.) As I say - relatively few such incidents, but even our gun laws don't prevent them all. Nevertheless, we feel free to move around in the sure knowledge that we are not likely to be held up at gunpoint, or shot by a lunatic who has suddenly broken. We are happy with our gun laws: we would recommend them to all. And when we see students killing scores of other teenagers, our hearts bleed for the parents of the victims. But we wonder why these poor bereaved people cannot get rid of privately-owned weapons and we marvel at the horrific cynicism of organisations like the NRA who insist that the only defence against such occurrences is to keep your own private arsenal. So blatantly putting profit before life, and endorsed by the paranoid victims of such evil propaganda.
I could go on ... and maybe I will be invited to. We'll have to wait and see. I'll finish by recalling that in another post, I suggested Americans ought not to citicise the British for having a social conscience and a far better attitude about co-operating with each other. I accept, therefore, that I shouldn't criticise America for wanting guns in order to perpetrate war amongst themselves. That is their society. I just don't want it anywhere near here.
I just wonder why it is that I like America and Americans so much when I find so much about them to disagree with.
It's a mystery.