Something else you have to consider is that it will be impossible to ban ordinary rifles and shotguns in the US. In the Midwest anyway, hunting is a huge part of the culture. People take their kids out of school for the first day of deer season, turkey season, etc. So the best you could manage is to ban pistols and military class weapons.
Personally, I'd be happy if we could just get a ban on handguns. You can't use them hunting, they'd be of minimal value in a revolution, and a shotgun is much better for home defense (
much more intimidating). The only things they seem to be good for is suicide and killing unarmed people. Add to that they can be hidden much more easily than a shotgun, hunting rifle, or M-16, and you have the weapon of choice for the unhinged.
Blastcannon wrote:I like to think that American society has developed and evolved since the eighteenth century.
It has developed, but that doesn't necessarily mean the citizens of our country have any more faith and trust in their country than before. The sixties undid a lot of the optimism forged by WWI and WWII, and since then our view of government has remained cynical and untrusting.
Professor Smooth wrote:The people of the United States have shown, time and again, that they are willing to give up their freedoms in the name of safety. Why is gun ownership the one right that's worth more lives every year than the US have lost in the Iraq war over the last five?
Well, first of all, some of the freedoms we have given up in the past 7 years haven't been favored by a large portion of the American people.
That said, it is only logical that guns should be the last freedom to go. Since our country's birth, the government and the people have been perpetually haggling. The government offers its protection in someway at the low price of some freedoms or rights. The people negotiate them down to just one or two freedoms, and a deal is struck. The popular thought though, is that if the people weren't packing heat, the government would have no reason to negotiate and would simply take the rights and freedoms away as it sees fit.
Given that perspective, right to bare arms should only be given up when the American people have no rights left to defend.
And of course, you can say, 'look at all these European countries, they're okay', but that's not a very effective argument.
First of all, a lot of Americans, especially those you're trying to disarm, have no desire to be like France or the UK, and therefore will reject the idea out of hand.
Second of all, and here's the big thing most people seem to forget, is
we're a lot bigger than them.
Without guns, an American's defense against his own government is pretty much just his voice.
His first voice is that which he carries in elections and other votes. Unfortunately, our massive population means that an individual's vote counts for less than it does in the UK. That wouldn't be so bad, because if he can't find people to vote with him, then he shouldn't win his side of the argument, but our country has an exceptional amount of geographic and cultural diversity in it.
California is a great metaphor for this conflict actually. There was a clash between the Northern and Southern halves a few years ago - for those overseas who don't know, SoCal is generally controlled by an urban population and Northern California is generally controlled by a agrarian population. Essentially, SoCalifornians, faced with extremely limited fresh water resources, came up with the idea that they should draw water from Northern California, so that they could go back to watering their lawns. Northern Californians of course got very upset - they needed the water they had to keep their vineyards growing. So in the end, you had a large number of voters (by virtue of urban density) motivated by a desire for personal comfort, versus a small number of voters motivated by a desire to sustain their livelihood.
These situations, and the one that came up in Florida several years ago, generally mean that Americans have very little trust in Democracy. The common man supports it as the best available option, but still regards it almost as much as an enemy as an ally, for it is certainly a fickle lover.
And of course, the second voice an American citizen has is in the form of Free Speech - protesting, writing letters, running campaigns, etc. Unfortunately, to do anything more than write a letter to your congressman (which in a country our size, where each congressman is receiving thousands of letters about different problems every day, doesn't do much) requires $$$ and probably some degree of education. To organize a group that will have any sort of political influence, you need access to mass media. Standing in the middle of Hayes, Kansas, or even Manhattan, with a homemade banner doesn't get you anywhere. (Thankfully, the internet may be ammending this gap. In fact, the success of Barak Obama so far may be the first tangible evidence that the internet is giving a voice to the traditionally uninfluential.)
Anyway, my point is, that because of our country's size, and the disparity of wealth, the average American doesn't think much of his ability to influence the course of events, and so, many of them figure their only real option is to be prepared to protect their homes when the evil empire comes for their women.
Of course, the irony here is, obviously if all of these guys speak at once they do have a voice, otherwise guns would be illegal already, right? Well, it helps that the progun lobby has wealthy individuals like Charleton Heston, and the companies that make the weapons backing them.
And finally, I'd like to remind people that our Right to Bear Arms isn't just in the Constitution, it's in the
Bill of Rights, the first ten ammendments to our Constitution. It's right there along with Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion. And I believe the generally belief is that an attack on any one of those freedoms is a threat to all of those freedoms.
The Bill of Rights is just something you don't touch - removing the Right to Bear Arms altogether would, as far as many Americans are concerned, open the door to people who would like to remove Freedom of Religion (and those people
are out there).
Oh, and one more addition - because of our size, the pervasive feeling that one picks up from American pop-culture (movies especially) is that 'the military' is always several hours away, assuming you can convince them to come and save you in the first place. Some people then probably believe that their guns are necessary for them to temporarily hold out against the enemy if their small town is ever beset by bikers, terrorists, communists, prehistoric monsters, or aliens.
Oh, and of course, their is also a VERY large number of people who simply
like guns. They admire the craftsmanship, the feel of the recoil, the sound of the shot, etc. Just as some people like cars or swords and knives - both of which are legitimate hobbies that have as much reason to be done away with as firearms. Well, the cars anyway.
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