And? It was common back then for rich, private citizens to own cannons. Full bore, fuck you and your musket, cannons. They were usually put into service during times of war and used in the Revolution, Civil War, etc. Given this, I don’t think the forefathers would scoff at the modern rifle being too powerful or whatever you are alluding to. Fun fact - black powder muzzle loading cannons are still legal today and don’t require any license.
[quote=“anon61221983, post:6, topic:14177, full:true”]Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan have strong guns/weapon cultures, too. We’re really not as unique as you seem to think.
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You’re seriously going to compare the US to some shit hole third world country? Give me a break. They may have some things in common - but they have way different causes, motivations, and fighting factions leading to gun violence.
Jesus - why go there? It’s like someone saying, “If we legalize weed, why not heroin?” Or “If we legalize gay marriage, what next? Someone wants to marry their dog?” It’s disingenuous at best.
Flamethrowers are legal federally and allowed most states. Get your flame on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmin5WkOuPw[quote=“anon61221983, post:8, topic:14177”]As for why banning more high powered weapon… Doesn’t having one create a possible danger to the public?
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Oh no - a possible danger? Well anything is possible. A friend of mine has this irrational fear of guns. Anytime she sees one, even one on a cop, she is afraid they are going to whip around and shoot her for no reason. I have another friend who is terrified of water and drowning. He won’t let his kids near a pool.
Everyone has some irrational beliefs, and that’s fine. But when you want to take something away from someone because of them, you need to step back and look at the big picture. The low estimate for the number of guns in America is 270,000,000. In 2011 there were 32,163 gun deaths (some justified) in America. This includes suicides and accidents, which I feel should be looked under a different light, but let’s just lump them all together.
So, assuming one gun was used for each death, you are looking at 0.0119122% of all the guns in the US being used to kill someone. Let’s go ahead and add to that number the total number of people who in the US who were injured by firearms in 2011 (justified, intentional and accidental). We get 106,046, which means only 0.039276% of the guns in the US are used to hurt someone.
How can one rationalize that firearms are such a danger to the public, when so few of them actually hurt anyone?
But wait - guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Using a conservative estimate, there are 76,080,000 who own guns in the US (117,290,000 have them in their home). Assuming that each person was killed/injured by one other person (which isn’t the case, as we know that one person may harm multiple people, and in suicides and some accidents they users hurt themselves) you are looking at 1.3938% of the gun owning population have used guns to hurt some one, with .4227% of them using guns to kill someone.
And while some people get very upset around guns, most of us are totally cool with our cars. I would think there are very few people who have an irrational fear of driving (more probably have an even more irrational fear of flying). In 2009 there were 254,212,610 registered passenger vehicles in the US and 33,883 deaths (which would include non-passenger car deaths, like buses or large trucks, and assuming only one person died per car) which means 0.013328% of the cars in the US killed someone. Lets add injury accidents an you have 2,250,883 people injured by 0.8854% of the cars out there.
Oh but wait - cars don’t crash into themselves, people do. In 2010 there were 210,000,000 licensed drivers (so some may be licensed with out a car, and some car owners my drive with out a license) - which means 1.0718% of them hurt someone with their cars in a year, (though only 0.01613% of them managed to kill someone).
So there is my perspective. Both guns and cars are a “possible danger to the public” - but I don’t think either of them are a “rational danger” to the public. I don’t know how one can rationally condemn something when such a small percentage is actually being used to harm people.