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The USA is one of the last frontiers so we are more recently and closely tied to weapons for hunting, survival, exploring. Personally, I really don't care what the remainder of the world thinks of it. As violence increases from overcrowding, etc, many of the critics will suddenly wish they had a weapon for self defense both against wild creatures and criminal barbarian types.
How do you and your Malaysian friends feel about homosexuality being illegal and hanging as a punishment for 1st offenders for drug trafficking? We all think other countries have "crazy" laws.
I'm not sure how it's relevant to the discussion, but I'll bite. Personally, I do not support the death penalty for any case, even murder. My wife, whose father used to work in the prison system and often had to walk the condemned to the gallows, supports the death penalty for murder and drug trafficking. Our friends are mixed.
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Originally Posted by jtab4994
No, it doesn't "prevent" anything. All it does is impose a burden on law-abiding citizens. Criminals would continue to do illegal transfers as they do now.
Criminals may still do transfers but it would make it easier to trace back where the guns came from. That way you can determine if an illegal gun used in a crime was trafficked, stolen, etc...
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Originally Posted by jtab4994
Who is charged with trafficking if the purchaser doesn't register? The person who bought the gun or the one who sold it? If you sell a car and the buyer doesn't register it, why should the seller get in trouble?
Both are responsible. Both parties can go to the local town hall, which will have access to a federal database to approve the transfer. If the purchaser has already satisfied all the requirements as I stated earlier (background check, psychiatric check, etc) then there can be a transfer of gun ownership. If they haven't been satisfied, then the purchaser will need to satisfy those requirements. If the gun is still sold without permission, then both parties can be charged with weapons trafficking.
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Originally Posted by jtab4994
What if you don't notice the gun is missing? A kid steals Grandpa's hunting rifle to hold up a liquor store, and Grandpa goes to jail because he didn't check the gun cabinet before he went to bed?
Those issues can be worked out in court. That sort of thing does happen every now and then in states with strict gun laws and an investigation can determine how the gun was acquired.
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Originally Posted by jtab4994
I bet it all sounds so simple when you're sitting around the LGBT-free zone of Malaysia, doesn't it?
I'm not sure what that even means or why Malaysia's anti sodomy laws are relevant to this discussion.
I grew up in Soviet Union. Contrary to what many thinks, guns were available to many law-abiding citizens. My father and my uncle had some, but they surrendered them shortly after I was born (for unrelated of my birth reasons). I first shot a gun at age 8 too. But it was never a right, more like a privilege.
Then Soviet Union collapsed and turmoil 90s came. Everybody who wanted to buy a gun, any gun, including rocket launchers, machine guns, hand grenades, etc could buy them illegally, but without much ado. Criminals and gangsters had to have them, they also got enough money to hire enough lawyers, enough money to get proper papers permitting gun ownership, and enough brutal force to remove any stupid witnesses. Common folks weren't allowed to own a gun legally, nor had any means to defend themselves against law if they would use a gun in self-defense. Even cops were at huge disadvantage, because they were bound by rules of engagement, and limited budgets (while criminals were not)...
Needless to say that coming of age during such times, I became to consider the right to keep and bear arms for all citizens to be a cornerstone of truly democratic government for the people. Any government who wants to limit gun ownership, wants to make its citizens defenseless.
I wanted to live in United States exactly for that reason (I could live in EU too, but chose to move on to USA). And I am happy to live in the country that have gun ownership protected by its Constitution.
it takes less than a minute to centerpunch and drill out a serial number, using just a $30 handheld electric drill. i used to take one off of each end of the number, weld up the areas, reblue the receiver and nobody had a clue. :-) So it's got 5 numbers now, instead of 7, so what?
We MUST re-evaluate this archaic "right to bear arms."
Re-evaluate it all you want, you're not going to change anything. When the time comes that you people try to come get them, you'll see bloodshed like never before.
To the OP - your thread title isn't really a question since you go straight to your opinion...
But the answer is that most nations have a warped view of the US based on media (movies and sensationalized news reports), and think that it's still the wild west out here, with people walking everywhere with six guns strapped to there sides. Heck - many American's think that.
So of course they are horrified.
Then again, most Europeans are also horrified of our concept of freedom of speech as well. "What? You mean police will protect and guard KKK parades?" They don't get American concepts of individual liberties, the good and the bad of it.
It's not simply "freedom of speech", it's related to the whole "hate speech" concept.
I agree with you, freedom of speech/thought shouldn't be censored, but to say that "Europeans are horrified from our concept of freedom of speech" when that concept was born in Europe is quite ludicrous.
You could say that in Europe there's the whole problem of apology of Fascism/Nazism and the hate speech concept and it'd be true, but it's not because Europeans hate freedom of speech (plus, NSA, Assange,Snowden should tell something about "freedom of speech" in the US), but due to the whole WWII memory whose damages and horrors make the ACW look like a joke in comparison.
It's not simply "freedom of speech", it's related to the whole "hate speech" concept.
I agree with you, freedom of speech/thought shouldn't be censored, but to say that "Europeans are horrified from our concept of freedom of speech" when that concept was born in Europe is quite ludicrous.
You could say that in Europe there's the whole problem of apology of Fascism/Nazism and the hate speech concept and it'd be true, but it's not because Europeans hate freedom of speech (plus, NSA, Assange,Snowden should tell something about "freedom of speech" in the US), but due to the whole WWII memory whose damages and horrors make the ACW look like a joke in comparison.
"Horrified" is probably not the proper word and yes the US Bill of Rights was inspired by previous legislation in Europe. The main point is the difference between collective rights, which Europe tends to focus on, and individual rights, something that the US constitution focuses on. With collective rights, the greater collective good (restrictions on gun ownership, outlawing flying the swastika in Germany is an example) outweights the rights of the individual. You can swing up and down the spectrum of collective vs. individual rights of course, even in the US. It's not absolute. But no other country in the world I believe goes to this extreme in protecting those individual rights, the US is unique. That's the great experiment envisioned by the founding fathers with the Bill of Rights, and that's what Europeans will really never understand - the deliberate focus on individual rights in the US. You take the bad with the good - some will abuse these rights unfortunetly.
We MUST re-evaluate this archaic "right to bear arms." The 2nd amendment was established in a different time for reasons that are no longer applicable in our day.
Constitution is not Bible, it can be changed. (c) Mike Huckabee
"Horrified" is probably not the proper word and yes the US Bill of Rights was inspired by previous legislation in Europe. The main point is the difference between collective rights, which Europe tends to focus on, and individual rights, something that the US constitution focuses on. With collective rights, the greater collective good (restrictions on gun ownership, outlawing flying the swastika in Germany is an example) outweights the rights of the individual. You can swing up and down the spectrum of collective vs. individual rights of course, even in the US. It's not absolute. But no other country in the world I believe goes to this extreme in protecting those individual rights, the US is unique. That's the great experiment envisioned by the founding fathers with the Bill of Rights, and that's what Europeans will really never understand - the deliberate focus on individual rights in the US. You take the bad with the good - some will abuse these rights unfortunetly.
This a greatly well-worded post and I wholly agree.
In fact, one thing many American users contest here against European posters (which, in the end, are me,easthome and some other, probably less than 5 people) is that we shouldn't intrude in US internal affair (which sounds rather comical from some people I read supporting an invasion of Iran and/or Syria), that we have no say in US legislation, that we shouldn't care, that we are Anti-American etc etc.
What it's not clear to them (generalising), is that this thread specifically asked for "other nations" and that nobody pretends to insult/denigrate/patronise Americans, it's not like anybody is threatening the US in order to change their legislation and Constitution (on the contrary, I think there has never been such a threat excluding the ACW which was Americans vs Americans and the 1776 war), it's just a mere opinion.
Such an extensive and pervasive gun possession and "culture" is absolutely foreign to most Europeans (Swiss excluded but they have also a completely different kind of "gun culture") and as such is viewed as something strange and abnormal.
Most Americans find absurd that I drive a car smaller than their lawnmower (hyperbole for the sake of the argument) since they believe that "car culture" is the same in both continents.
Hence, chill down (again, to all agitated posters, not anyone specifically and not certainly you) guys.
I grew up in the US and I've lived on and off in Malaysia for 5.5 years.
My Malaysian wife HATES guns and thinks it's crazy that Americans are allowed to own them. She lives in Malaysia and says that if Malaysians had guns the street crime would be worse than it is. The country now has a lot of petty crimes. Most of our Malaysian friends feel the same way.
When we lived in the US, she'd get nervous or angry whenever she's hear about a murder in the city.
I also know and have worked with people from all over Asia, Europe and Africa and they think our gun laws are too loose. On the other hand, most of them seem to think that our laws are universal and not regulated on a state level like they are.
The only nationality of people I met regularly who liked guns more than Americans were Yemenis.
That being said, I support a person's right to a fun only if:
1. They pass a VERY, VERY strict background check. This includes psychiatric evaluations and a history of a violent background.
2. If you're buying you're first gun, you must attend a course on gun safety.
3. Your gun must be registered with the state and federal governments. That prevents your gun for being transferred illegally to someone in another state with stricter gun laws.
4. All person to person sales of guns must be registered with the local and federal government to prevent trafficking. This includes gun shows. If you sell it to someone and they don't register it, it should been treated as a gun trafficking charge.
5. As long as the gun is registered to you, you are responsible for it. If your gun is purchased in Virginia is used in a crime in NY, and you didn't report it stolen, it can be treated as if you were trafficking it.
Your ideas have been used in the past to deny law abiding citizens of their Constitutional rights. Would you feel the same type of onerous restrictions should be required for a free people to exercise any of their other "rights"?
Also your ideas would eventually lead to gun confiscation, just as they have in other countries where the citizens were forcibly disarmed.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Ben Franklin
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