What are legitimate reasons for citizens owning guns?

[Thebobo]

You guys miss the point of the 2A. The death from firearm homicide is rather low in this country, probably exceedingly slow if you never decide to commit suicide and don't live in an inner city. Not worth taking the rights of all for something that is a bigger worry in your mind than in reality. And I don't care what other countries do.

!

 

[SNC]

*Pats the little child on the head*

She's not your mother, you can't threaten her with telling the neighbours that she's a whore like you would your mother.

Agent is that you?

 

[Atreus21]

Dude, you couched this thread as a way to learn what people's reasons are to have a gun. Did you learn anything new? Did any non-gun-person's comment(s) give you pause to reconsider anything? Or are you now more entrenched in what you already believed before you created this thread? Was all this for justification?

[Edit: I know that calling someone "dude" is an offense in some places, but around these parts it's a term of endearment.]

I use the term all the time.

I started the thread for two reasons: first, because it gets at the fundamental justification for the 2nd amendment, which I don't often see debated directly. And second, because I have been considering buying a gun for the first time.

I didn't expect to be convinced that there is absolutely no case for a gun being useful for self defense.

 

[Atreus21]

Maybe he just believes in not escalating already heightened situations. It's a fairly logical position to take, particularly when one might be escalating a situation where one's family is directly at risk.

Every circumstance certainly calls for careful judgment about what the attacker is going to do, and is capable of doing.

I think I'd like to have a choice between trying to seize control of the situation or not.

But I think in general my family is in more peril by abandoning a position of power in favor of deferring to the one who imperils them in the first place.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I thought you needed the guns to defend yourself from the imminent threat of gun-murder-crime?

Lots of conflicting feelings in this thread from the gun-huggers.

You have a right to use them for that reason, yes. But in reality it is very unlikely that one would ever need to use it that way. It is also very unlikely that one will ever be murdered with a firearm, but that doesn't stop the anti-2A nutters either.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

I use the term all the time.

I started the thread for two reasons: first, because it gets at the fundamental justification for the 2nd amendment, which I don't often see debated directly. And second, because I have been considering buying a gun for the first time.

I didn't expect to be convinced that there is absolutely no case for a gun being useful for self defense.

I've never regretted buying one and they've been useful on 3 separate occasions for me. They're in a fast access biometric or combination safe when i have the grandkids over.

 

[Atreus21]

I've never regretted buying one and they've been useful on 3 separate occasions for me. They're in a fast access biometric or combination safe when i have the grandkids over.

The shotgun I get will be secured similarly. That V-line cabinet I linked to earlier permits combination only for quick access or key-lock for better security. That's very attractive to me.

How many grandchildren do you have? On what occasions was the gun you have useful?

 

[imported_tajmahal]

The shotgun I get will be secured similarly. That V-line cabinet I linked to earlier permits combination only for quick access or key-lock for better security. That's very attractive to me.

How many grandchildren do you have? On what occasions was the gun you have useful?

3 of them.

Short answer to 2 of them was merely racking the slide of a 9mm and the other was reaching to draw it. Both incidents sent the problem running off and I was happy it didn't take more. Can I absolutely prove it was needed or the difference between an attack or just a mistake? Nope, but i'm confident in the appraisal. Lott would agree, the Stanford team, probably not.

 

[dank69]

Check against government tyranny, haha you guys crack me up.

 

[IronWing]

Check against government tyranny, haha you guys crack me up.

It would be a plausible reason if the NRA didn't have a decades long history of supporting would be tyrants.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Check against government tyranny, haha you guys crack me up.

That is the intent of the 2A, really.

 

[hal2kilo]

Easiest method of suicide. I checked other.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Easiest method of suicide. I checked other.

I think it is absolutely silly to blame guns in suicides, but doing so inflates the numbers greatly (the vast majority of gun deaths are via suicide) so the anti-2A nutters love to include that in their stats.

 

[bradly1101]

I use the term all the time.

I started the thread for two reasons: first, because it gets at the fundamental justification for the 2nd amendment, which I don't often see debated directly. And second, because I have been considering buying a gun for the first time.

I didn't expect to be convinced that there is absolutely no case for a gun being useful for self defense.

Understood. I hope while justifying the 2nd amendment you don't overlook the purpose of its all-important first clause (ha! what am I saying?). And the 2A has been debated here at length.

The U.S. has been down this road before. 2-Aers will tell you that the gun problem in the Old West was a myth. They just don't think there's a learnable lesson there, and I know as Americans it's easier to ignore history, but there was a time and place in this country when/where men felt they needed to carry a sidearm. It led to bullets being argument solvers, and controls had to be put in place to stop the carnage. What existed in the old west has now metastasized to include the whole country, and gun manufacturers and the NRA are laughing all the way to the bank on the backs of the killed and wounded; they're counting on your fear of being shot, and your ability to ignore history.

Are you 100% sure that that gun will not cause harm to you or your family? Are you sure it will never be used for offense in any conceivable future and/or if it outlasts you? Those seem like burdensome questions for gun owners.

"...Pioneer publications show Old West leaders repeatedly arguing in favor of gun control. City leaders in the old cattle towns knew from experience what some Americans today don't want to believe: a town which allows easy access to guns invites trouble.
What these cow town leaders saw intimately in their day-to-day association with guns is that more guns in more places caused not greater safety, but greater death in an already dangerous wilderness. By the 1880s many in the west were fed up with gun violence. Gun control, they contended, was absolutely essential, and the remedy advocated usually was usually no less than a total ban on pistol-packing..."

 

[imported_tajmahal]

It would be a plausible reason if the NRA didn't have a decades long history of supporting would be tyrants.

Reminds me of the Fantastic4 FOAM ON!!

 

[dank69]

I think it is absolutely silly to blame guns in suicides, but doing so inflates the numbers greatly (the vast majority of gun deaths are via suicide) so the anti-2A nutters love to include that in their stats.

They rightfully get the blame because people who experience an extreme bout of temporary depression to the point of suicidal thoughts are much more likely to be successful if they have easy access to a gun.

 

[dank69]

That is the intent of the 2A, really.

Sure that was the intent hundreds of years ago. That ship sailed far far away in the last century.

 

[IronWing]

Reminds me of the Fantastic4 FOAM ON!!

The yap dog has to yap.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Sure that was the intent hundreds of years ago. That ship sailed far far away in the last century.

I disagree. Asking the military to attack their own people, their own armed people is a tall order. A civil war isn't the same as a war on foreign soil where it is much easier to demonize the enemy and use propaganda to make them less than human, make it good vs. evil. The 2A's intent is as important to day as it was when the ink was still fresh on the paper.

 

[dank69]

I disagree. Asking the military to attack their own people, their own armed people is a tall order. A civil war isn't the same as a war on foreign soil where it is much easier to demonize the enemy and use propaganda to make them less than human, make it good vs. evil. The 2A's intent is as important to day as it was when the ink was still fresh on the paper.

They have drones for that you imbecile.

 

[SlowSpyder]

They have drones for that you imbecile.

Name calling, nice. Maybe you didn't know, but there is someone that controls the drones... might be a lot to ask that person controlling it to bomb the country and very people they're supposed to be defending.

 

[dank69]

Name calling, nice. Maybe you didn't know, but there is someone that controls the drones... might be a lot to ask that person controlling it to bomb the country and very people they're supposed to be defending.

Might be a lot to ask of the NSA to spy on Americans as well, amirite? How do you think it would go down for the operator who refuses a direct order? You keep thinking citizens could do anything to stop the US military if it ever came down to it, champ. I mean, there isn't another country in the world that could stop the machine but I'm sure you rednecks will take care of it with your pop guns.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Might be a lot to ask of the NSA to spy on Americans as well, amirite? How do you think it would go down for the operator who refuses a direct order? You keep thinking citizens could do anything to stop the US military if it ever came down to it, champ. I mean, there isn't another country in the world that could stop the machine but I'm sure you rednecks will take care of it with your pop guns.

Redneck? I'm a white collar guy, a manager of a technical area for a large corporation. I lean left in many areas, but not the 2A. Gun ownership and pro-2A'ers are a lot more diverse than what you think in your little bubble. Comparing spying to maybe dropping bombs on your home state. Laughable.

The reality of it is this, it doesn't matter what you think would happen in such a situation, what matters is that the intent of the 2A is to be able to fight the government if it came to it. And giving up my guns today isn't going to happen. We have, for over a year now, protesters in the streets rioting destroying neighborhoods because they didn't get their way in our long standing democratic process. We are in a hyper-partisan era. No way we're letting you anti-2A logic defying nutters take away more of our 2A rights.

 

[dank69]

Redneck? I'm a white collar guy, a manager of a technical area for a large corporation. I lean left in many areas, but not the 2A. Gun ownership and pro-2A'ers are a lot more diverse than what you think in your little bubble. Comparing spying to maybe dropping bombs on your home state. Laughable.

The reality of it is this, it doesn't matter what you think would happen in such a situation, what matters is that the intent of the 2A is to be able to fight the government if it came to it. And giving up my guns today isn't going to happen. We have, for over a year now, protesters in the streets rioting destroying neighborhoods because they didn't get their way in our long standing democratic process. We are in a hyper-partisan era. No way we're letting you anti-2A logic defying nutters take away more of our 2A rights.

Who says I want to take away your guns? Our argument is about whether or not John Q. Public has a chance against the US Military. That is it.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Who says I want to take away your guns? Our argument is about whether or not John Q. Public has a chance against the US Military. That is it.

No, this thread is about what are reasons to own guns, one of the options in the poll being fighting the government if it came to it. How you think the fight would go means absolutely NOTHING. That IS the intent of the 2A, and it is as relevant today as it was in 1782. I'm sure the colonists couldn't win against the mighty British Empire. The Soviet Union, with all its might, would just roll over Afghanistan. There are examples all throughout history like these. But again, how you *think* things would go simply doesn't matter in regards to the intent of the 2A.