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I don't know about you, but I sure am not like people thousands of years ago, not even hundreds of years ago. While our bodies have not changed much from the Stone Age, culture makes all the difference. We are humans and not animals, animals can't serve as an excuse for gross behavior.
When I said earlier that we are not in the Middle Ages anymore, I meant that today we have a different opinion of life. Back then people were dying a whole lot, because of every little ridiculous thing. People were breeding a lot in order to compensate for the high death rates. Today is more like quality instead of quantity. Life is precious and most of us appreciate that attitude. The Middle Ages were a dangerous place, people were killing each other all the time for funny reasons. All that chivalry crap that people today tend to idealize so much.
Nonsense. Humans haven't changed at all. Civilization and culture is a very thin veneer. Witness what happened after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The Holocaust was not all that long ago either.
This 'modern intellectual mindset' you speak of has not reached to near the extent you seem to think it has. Some types of conflicts are solvable with non violent methods, others, well, good luck using mere intellect and lofty ideals. This buy back program we are discussing here, is nothing more than the latter, a lofty ideal. Designed to convince folks that self defense is a bad thing, actually a criminal thing and that is complete and utter nonsense. Once again, you fall into the trap that equates firearms ownership, and a willingness to defend what is dear to you, with a desire to have to do so. Just because I am ready to defend my family, my property and myself, does not mean I WANT to. However, I would far rather meet a criminal attack with violence returned tenfold than depend on the tender mercy of a violent thug or predatory animal. The latter is a concern to me, but probably not so much with a Chicago resident. Chicago does, however have a hyper violent two legged predator element, that would gladly butcher a little old lady for her jar full of dimes. This element is not swayed by intellect or reason, but the business end of a .38 revolver would certainly get the point across.
Your approach is different. You seem to take violent crime for granted, I don't. If your institutions accept and your system promotes the causes of violent crimes, it comes in handy as an excuse for owning weapons in order to defend oneself, of course. But that can hardly be the solution.
I find it interesting that in Germany for instance, where you need a veeery good reason to apply for a gun license and thus there are few guns out there, the murder rate is 1/6 of that in the US. And even in mafia Italy it is only 1/5th.
Nonsense. Humans haven't changed at all. Civilization and culture is a very thin veneer. Witness what happened after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The Holocaust was not all that long ago either.
Some have not changed, a lot have. We are not all the same. The Holocaust was 65+ years ago, a long time given our cultural advances since then. Compared to today that world was outright primitive.
What about Katrina?!
Some have not changed, a lot have. We are not all the same. The Holocaust was 65+ years ago, a long time given our cultural advances since then. Compared to today that world was outright primitive.
What about Katrina?!
Nonsense. Just 21 years ago East Germans were still willing to shoot anyone crossing a border. Right now we're seeing a disintegration of order in Greece. Katrina? Looters, murderers, etc., when things got tough; that veneer of "culture" and "civilization" fell right off...
Evolution takes a lot longer than 65 years. All that's changed since then is we have more technology and can destroy each other more readily. People were talking the way you're talking in the years before WWI, thinking we had "changed" and that war was outdated, etc. All that really happened, was a bloodier war than ever before.
Your approach is different. You seem to take violent crime for granted, I don't. If your institutions accept and your system promotes the causes of violent crimes, it comes in handy as an excuse for owning weapons in order to defend oneself, of course. But that can hardly be the solution.
I find it interesting that in Germany for instance, where you need a veeery good reason to apply for a gun license and thus there are few guns out there, the murder rate is 1/6 of that in the US. And even in mafia Italy it is only 1/5th.
Germany has a significantly higher crime rate than neighboring Switzerland, and Switzerland is full of guns. Besides which, Germany has, I've seen estimates of, as many or more illegal guns as legally owned guns.
We can target the underlying causes of crime but there will always be some violent crime.
I don't blindly trust anything or anybody - and that includes the political agendas of others.
Statistics? Read my post again. I'm 60 years old and I have not had to fight off a predator since junior high school shop class nearly 50 years ago. I weigh my own experience more heavily than other agendas that are thrown at me.
People who don't live in crime-ridden neighborhoods don't need a gun to defend themselves. And crime-ridden neighborhoods are what they are because they are infested with guns. Would you not agree that we need to do something about that? Zealous gun advocacy perpetuates the problem.
So, just because you personally haven't had to "fight off a predator" since junior high that nobody else has?
Do you realize that crime does occur in relatively safe, crime-free neighborhoods?
Chicago has been doing 'gun buy backs' at regular intervals for quite awhile (we are hardly alone as a major urban area who has done such a thing), and it looks like that the City-Data folks have just now discovered this. I don't know that it does anything to reduce crime (I suspect it does not), but the histrionics about a rather routine and VOLUNTARY affair around here seems to be perplexing. I find it strange that Nomadicus in battling his mysterious enemy 'the leftist cause' (whatever exactly that is), and others who reference 'third reich behavor', have targeted such a small and rather useless program for their ire.
'Third reich behavior' would have been to go door to door and take our useful and wanted guns by force, not asking people to sell our worthless and unwanted guns. "Third reich behavior' would be to forbid the ownership of ANY guns whatsoever, not just enforcing an archaic handgun registration ban that forbids the ownership of a SPECIFIC type of gun since a certain year (there are plenty of other types of guns that may be legally owned within the city limits). Don't get me wrong, the constitutionality of the handgun registration ban may very well be in question, and for good reason, and may very well be overturned, which will most likely not result in any sort of feared crime wave, but that is hardly a sign that the city is run by those with Naziesque aspirations (although Daley, I'm convinced, fancy's himself a bit of a dictator, but he'll be gone within the decade, I'm certain of it ).
For the record, I'm not a gun owner, and do not come from a gun owning tradition (and do come from a long tradition of people who settled in urban and suburban areas, which I believe often results in a different attitude toward guns that those who come from a gun ownership and rural tradition), so I don't know that I entirely understand the passion in which some speak on this subject, but I do try to look at subjects related to this rather contentious issue as objectively as possible.
Well, I guess the reasoning is simply that the smaller the number of guns out there, the lower the likelihood of shots being fired and someone getting hurt or killed by them.
I see you're in Portugal. Are you a European citizen? Have you ever been to the States? Have you ever personally known any Americans for any length of time? Do you really think that registered, legal gun owners in the States are running around, randomly shooting their guns off at each other?
Germany has a significantly higher crime rate than neighboring Switzerland, and Switzerland is full of guns. Besides which, Germany has, I've seen estimates of, as many or more illegal guns as legally owned guns.
We can target the underlying causes of crime but there will always be some violent crime.
Switzerland's homicide rate is 2.5 times that of Germany.
In rural areas there are more people with weapons and the restrictions are harder to control. But in cities you better not get caught having a gun without a license, you would be locked away.
A gun buy back program is just another "feel good" gesture by the authorities unwilling to actually work on deterring violent crime by recruiting, training and arming the victim population. I think this would be an interesting experiment particularly if it were backed up buy a "Castle Law" protecting the would be victims that actually fought back.
On drawback might be some women thinning the ranks of drunken husbands or boyfriends but that is just a form of pest control.
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